Part 2 of our series: AI-Powered Websites
We talk a lot about building AI features into client websites. It seemed only right that we proved the concept on our own site first. So we built the Business Launchpad, a tool that lets anyone type in a proposed business name and receive instant domain availability and a full AI-powered intelligence report.
This article walks through what we built, why we built it, the technical decisions we made, and what we've learned about embedding AI into a website as a lead generation strategy.
What the tool does
Visit our Business Launchpad page, type in a business name, and optionally select your industry. Two things happen simultaneously.
On the left, the tool searches domain availability across six top-level domains (.com, .co.uk, .uk, .ai, .io, and .dev) with live pricing from our domain registrar. You can select the ones you want and register them directly through our integrated checkout.
On the right, an AI-powered report is generated in real time. The AI searches the web for businesses already using that name or something similar, checks the domain landscape, flags potential trademark considerations, assesses social media handle availability, and delivers an overall assessment of whether the name appears clear to use. This typically takes ten to twenty seconds, and the results are specific, cited, and grounded in what actually exists online, not generic advice.
The two panels sit side by side on desktop, giving you everything you need to make an informed decision about your business name in a single view.
Why we built it
The strategic thinking was simple. Someone who is searching for a business name is at the very beginning of their journey. Within weeks, they'll need a website. Within months, they'll need SEO, possibly Google Ads, potentially social media management. They are, in the most literal sense, our ideal future client.
Traditional lead generation for a digital agency involves content marketing, paid ads, networking, and referrals. All of those work, but they all reach people at various stages of the buying cycle. The Business Launchpad reaches people at the earliest possible moment, before they've even registered their company, and gives them something genuinely useful in exchange for their attention.
That's the key insight: the tool isn't a gimmick or a demo. It provides real value. If you're starting a business in Hertfordshire, Essex, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, London, or anywhere in the UK and you want to know whether your name is already taken, whether the domains are available, and whether there are trademark risks, this tool gives you better answers than spending an hour manually searching Companies House, WHOIS databases, and social media platforms.
The three-tier funnel
We didn't want to gate the tool behind a signup form. That kills conversion at exactly the wrong moment, when someone is curious but uncommitted. Instead, we designed a three-tier access model.
The first five searches are completely free, no signup, no email, nothing. This gives people enough room to try the tool, see the quality of the results, and get genuinely hooked on its utility.
After five searches, we ask for a name, email address, and business industry. In return, they unlock twenty more searches. This is where the lead generation happens. We now have a contact who is actively starting a business, and we know what industry they're in. That information is extraordinarily valuable for segmented follow-up.
For power users, people testing multiple business names, agencies doing client research, serial entrepreneurs, we offer a hundred additional searches for a one-off payment of £4.99. This covers our API costs and qualifies the lead even further: someone willing to pay for a name-checking tool is serious about starting their business.
The technical approach
The tool runs on the same Next.js and Payload CMS stack as the rest of our site. The domain search is powered by the 20i Reseller API, which we proxy through a server-side route so our credentials are never exposed to the browser. The AI report uses the Anthropic API with web search enabled, the same technology that powers Claude, which means the AI is searching the live web, not working from stale training data.
Rate limiting, credit tracking, and tier management are handled by a dedicated Payload collection that tracks usage by IP address for free-tier users and by email for registered users. The Stripe integration handles payments for the third tier, with a webhook that automatically upgrades the user's credit allocation on successful payment.
We also added geographic restriction via Cloudflare. The tool is designed for UK businesses, so non-UK visitors see a clear message explaining the service is UK-focused. This keeps our results relevant and our API costs manageable.
One technical decision worth noting: the domain search and AI report fire in parallel, not sequentially. The domain results appear in about a second while the AI report takes fifteen to twenty seconds to complete. By showing the domain results immediately, the user has something useful to interact with while the heavier AI processing finishes in the background. This matters enormously for perceived performance.
What we've learned
Building this tool crystallised several principles that now inform how we approach AI features for client projects.
First, AI features should solve a specific problem, not demonstrate a capability. Nobody visits a website thinking "I'd like to interact with some AI." They visit thinking "I need to know if this business name is available." The AI is invisible infrastructure; the value it creates is what matters.
Second, the quality of the output must be high enough that someone would pay for it. If the AI report returned vague, generic advice ("consider checking trademark databases"), nobody would use the tool twice. Because it returns specific findings ("there is an existing company called Northgate Solutions Ltd registered at Companies House, operating in IT consultancy since 2019"), people trust it and come back.
Third, gating should be progressive, not binary. The free tier builds trust. The email tier captures the lead. The paid tier covers costs and qualifies intent. Each step gives something before asking for something.
Fourth, building on a modern stack makes this kind of feature practical. This would have been enormously difficult on a traditional WordPress setup. The combination of server-side API routes, a headless CMS for managing the business logic, and a modern hosting platform that handles the compute requirements made the build straightforward.
The bigger picture
The Business Launchpad isn't just a feature on our website. It's a proof of concept for the kind of AI-powered tools we build for our clients across Hertfordshire, Essex, London, and beyond.
If we can create a tool that generates leads, captures emails, processes payments, searches the web in real time, and delivers personalised intelligence reports, all embedded seamlessly into a website, we can build the equivalent for any business in any sector.
The exhibition company that wants to help visitors configure a custom stand. The stone fabricator that wants to let customers visualise their kitchen worktop. The recruitment firm in London that wants to match candidates to roles automatically. The pattern is the same: take something that currently requires a phone call or a manual process, and build an intelligent tool that does it instantly on the website.
That's the direction we're heading. The Business Launchpad is our first public proof point.
Next in the series: [How AI Helped Our Client Target American Companies Searching for UK Services](/blog/ai-international-seo-hreflang)