🚨Small modular reactor startup X-energy just raised $700M as tech companies scramble to secure nuclear power for AI data centers—the infrastructure war has officially extended beyond compute to energy itself.

27% of small businesses still don't have a professional website. That's millions of plumbers, auto repair shops, contractors, and local services leaving money on the table every single day.

Here's the playbook one developer is using to turn this into a $20k/month side business:

Average sale: $500-$2,000 per site. Time investment: 30 minutes per site. Close rate: 1 in 5.

Do the math. That's $2,000-$8,000 per week for someone who treats this like a part-time job.

AI website builders have reached the quality threshold where small businesses can't tell the difference between a $2,000 AI-generated site and a $10,000 custom-built site.

The economics are brutal for traditional web developers. They need weeks and thousands of dollars to deliver what AI can generate in minutes. Small businesses don't need custom architecture. They need a professional-looking site that shows up on Google and converts visitors into customers.

AI delivers that. Fast, cheap, and good enough.

The website builder market is growing from $2.2 billion in 2024 to $2.6 billion by 2026. AI is the primary driver.

But the real opportunity isn't selling website builder subscriptions. It's selling finished websites to businesses that don't know how to use the tools themselves.

Small businesses with modern, optimized websites report 15-50% revenue increases and 2x more leads compared to businesses without websites. The ROI is obvious. The barrier isn't cost — it's effort and technical knowledge.

That's the gap you're filling. You're not selling websites. You're selling the elimination of friction.

This isn't defensible long-term. Eventually, these businesses will figure out they can use AI tools themselves. Or AI will get good enough that websites auto-generate from a business listing.

But that's years away. Right now, the moat is speed and local execution.

The businesses that need websites the most are the ones least likely to adopt AI tools themselves. They're busy running their operations. They don't have time to learn Durable, ChatGPT, or prompt engineering.

You do. And you can move faster than traditional web agencies because you're not building from scratch. You're assembling, customizing, and delivering.

If you need a cash-flow-positive side business, this is it. Low startup cost, fast turnaround, clear value proposition.

If you're a traditional web developer, you're competing with AI whether you acknowledge it or not. The businesses that used to pay you $5k for a basic site can now get the same result for $500 from someone using AI tools.

If you're building in this space, the next layer is recurring revenue. Websites are one-time sales. But SEO, content updates, and ongoing optimization are monthly retainers. AI makes those services scalable.

What's next

Expect AI website builders to start offering direct outreach to businesses. Durable, Wix, and Squarespace will eventually automate the entire sales process — identifying businesses without websites, generating custom sites, and pitching them directly.

When that happens, the arbitrage window closes. But until then, it's wide open.

BTW: The best part about this business model? You're not competing on quality. You're competing on awareness. Most small businesses don't even know AI website builders exist. You're just showing them what's possible.

There is no better time to learn how to use AI to build solutions businesses want. I’m hosting a workshop that will show you, step-by-step, how to build tools and solutions using AI without having to know how to code.

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The Recap: AWS is committing $50 billion to build dedicated AI infrastructure exclusively for the U.S. government, adding nearly 1.3 gigawatts of compute capacity starting in 2026. This marks a fundamental shift where cloud providers are becoming sovereign compute partners rather than just service vendors.

Unpacked:

Bottom line: This isn't just a procurement deal—it's AWS becoming a sovereign AI infrastructure provider. The strategic implication is that cloud providers are now building nation-state level compute capabilities, fundamentally changing the relationship between tech companies and government from vendor-client to strategic partner.

RAM prices now fluctuate daily like seafood, sold at 'market price' in stores as the AI compute crunch breaks traditional hardware economics.

Anthropic launches Opus 4.5 with Chrome and Excel integrations—the battle for enterprise AI switches from models to workplace embedding.

The Verge publishes rare contrarian technical essay exposing fundamental gaps between LLMs and human intelligence based on neuroscience research.

Trump disbands Elon Musk's DOGE as members fear prosecution—a dramatic end to tech's most visible government efficiency experiment.

DOJ settles with RealPage over rent price-fixing allegations, restricting how landlords can share data—algorithmic collusion gets regulatory guardrails.

New Humane Bench AI benchmark tests whether chatbots protect human wellbeing rather than just intelligence—a shift from capability to responsibility metrics.

Google and Accel partner to invest up to $2M per startup in India's AI ecosystem—tech giants building regional AI talent pipelines.

Altman and Ive preview a 'peaceful' AI device launching in two years—the post-smartphone computing paradigm takes physical form.

Best of AI™ Team

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