I recently had a discussion with AI Mode about a fear that many small website owners are probably feeling right now.
The fear is simple:
If Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews can answer questions directly in search, what chance does a small hobby website have?
This is especially worrying for people who are not full-time publishers.
I am thinking about the person who works during the week, has a hobby they genuinely enjoy, and is considering building a website around it in the evenings and at weekends.
That person might look at AI search and think:
“What is the point?”
Why spend time writing about gardening, baking, chess, astronomy, woodworking, painting, birdwatching, fishing, model railways, fitness over 50, or any other hobby if Google can now summarise the answer before anyone clicks?
It is a fair concern.
But the answer AI Mode gave me was interesting. In fact, it was almost surprisingly positive.
The broad argument was this:
AI Mode may actually create new opportunities for genuine hobbyists, because it weakens the old advantage held by generic content farms.
That does not mean traffic is guaranteed.
It does not mean every weekend hobby site will suddenly become successful.
But it does suggest that the opportunity has changed.
The old game was often about publishing lots of search-targeted articles. The new game is more likely to reward real experience, useful resources, first-hand examples, practical tools, and content that cannot easily be replaced by a generic AI summary.
That is an important distinction.
The AI Mode answer was enthusiastic — maybe too enthusiastic
The post AI Mode produced had a very strong headline:
“Why AI Mode is the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Weekend Hobby Websites”
That is a bold claim.
Maybe too bold.
I would not want a beginner website owner to read that and think building traffic is now easy. It is not.
You still need to choose a good topic. You still need to understand your audience. You still need to create useful resources. You still need to earn trust. You still need to give people a reason to visit your site rather than simply accept the AI summary.
So no, this is not a “gimme”.
AI Mode is not going to magically send traffic to every small hobby website.
But I do think the answer pointed towards something important:
The opportunity is not gone. It has moved.
And if small site owners understand where it has moved to, they may actually have a better chance than they think.
Generic hobby content is in trouble
One of the strongest points in the AI Mode answer was that generic content is becoming less useful.
For example, a basic article such as:
“Top 10 Tips for Beginner Gardeners”
or:
“What Is Watercolour Painting?”
or:
“Best Telescope for Beginners”
is very vulnerable.
Why?
Because that sort of information is easy for AI to summarise.
It is also the kind of content that large websites and content farms have produced for years. Many of those articles were not based on real experience. They were often stitched together from other articles, written to rank, and padded out with obvious advice.
AI Mode does not need to send users to those pages if it can produce a good enough answer itself.
That sounds bad for website owners, but it may be especially bad for the most generic websites.
The faceless “expert pretender” site has a problem.
If its article is only a rewritten version of information that already exists everywhere else, AI can replace much of its function.
That is where the weekend hobbyist may have an opening.
What AI cannot do is live the hobby
The most useful line from the AI Mode post was this:
“What Google’s AI cannot do is live your hobby.”
That is the heart of the opportunity.
AI can explain how to grow tomatoes.
But it did not try growing tomatoes in your shaded back garden.
AI can describe a beginner telescope.
But it did not stand outside on a cold night struggling to find Saturn.
AI can explain sourdough hydration.
But it did not take photos of your failed loaf and work out what went wrong.
AI can summarise woodworking joints.
But it did not cut a slightly imperfect joint on your actual workbench and show how you fixed it.
That is where real people still matter.
A hobby website built around lived experience has something AI does not have by itself:
proof.
Proof that the person actually did the thing.
Proof that the advice came from practice, not just theory.
Proof that mistakes happened and lessons were learned.
Proof that the site is not just another generic article factory.
This does not mean every post needs to be a personal diary. But it does mean that first-hand experience becomes more valuable, not less.
The shift from “encyclopaedia” to “logbook”
The AI Mode post suggested that hobby site owners should stop thinking like encyclopaedias and start thinking more like logbooks.
That is a very useful way to think about it.
An encyclopaedia article explains a topic in a general way.
A logbook shows what happened when a real person tried something.
For example, instead of writing:
“How to Grow Tomatoes Indoors”
a stronger article might be:
“My 12-Week Experiment Growing Tomatoes Indoors in a Low-Light Flat”
That second version is much harder for AI to replace completely.
AI can summarise the conclusion, but readers may still want to see the details:
What equipment did you use?
What did the plants look like each week?
What mistakes did you make?
What would you do differently?
Did it actually work?
Was it worth the effort?
This is the kind of content that has human value beyond the basic answer.
The same applies across many hobbies.
A chess site could publish “My Attempt to Build a French Defence Repertoire as a Club Player.”
A baking site could publish “I Tried Three Beginner Sourdough Methods and Only One Worked Reliably.”
A telescope site could publish “What I Could Actually See From My Garden With a £150 Beginner Telescope.”
A woodworking site could publish “The First Five Mistakes I Made Building a Simple Garden Bench.”
These are not just articles.
They are evidence.
They show the work.
Photos, examples and mistakes become more important
Another strong point in the AI Mode answer was the importance of original photos and real examples.
This matters because a lot of weak websites have always hidden behind stock images.
A gardening article with a generic stock photo of a perfect garden does not prove much.
A woodworking article with a polished stock image of someone else’s workshop does not prove much.
A telescope article with a dramatic NASA image does not prove what a beginner can actually see from their garden.
But a real photo does something different.
It says:
“I was there.”
“This is what happened.”
“This is the actual result.”
That does not mean the photo has to be perfect. In fact, imperfect photos can sometimes be more trustworthy.
A slightly messy workbench may be more believable than a glossy stock photo.
A failed cake may be more useful than a perfect one.
A cloudy telescope session may teach more than a fantasy image of Saturn.
For hobby websites, this is good news.
A weekend hobbyist may not have a media team, but they do have access to something more useful:
their own experience.
Text alone is becoming weaker
This is where website owners need to be realistic.
The AI Mode post made the point that:
“Text can be summarised, but tools must be used.”
That is a big idea.
A plain article can be absorbed into an AI answer. But a calculator, quiz, checklist, planner, comparison table, downloadable template, or interactive guide gives the visitor something to do.
For example:
A gardening site could offer a planting calendar.
A board game site could offer a “what should we play tonight?” selector based on number of players and available time.
A baking site could offer an ingredient scaling calculator.
A telescope site could offer a beginner telescope decision aid.
A chess site could offer an opening explorer, tactic trainer, or PGN viewer.
A craft site could offer a materials cost calculator.
These resources are harder for AI Mode to replace inside a short answer.
AI can describe the tool, but the user may still need to visit the site to use it.
This is where the opportunity becomes more practical.
The future hobby website may not be just a collection of articles. It may be a collection of useful resources built around a real hobby community.
Low-code tools change the opportunity
In the past, building useful tools was difficult for a solo website owner.
You either needed to code properly, pay someone, or use limited plugins.
That is changing.
With tools like ChatGPT, Claude, VS Code, WordPress, simple JavaScript, and low-code platforms, it is now much easier for a non-professional developer to build small utilities.
That does not mean it is effortless.
I think some “vibe coding” claims are too optimistic. You still need some basic technical understanding. You may need to upload files, check paths, test errors, understand where code belongs, and work through problems.
But compared with a few years ago, the barrier is much lower.
A weekend website owner can now build things that would previously have been out of reach.
That could be a major advantage.
Not because every hobbyist needs to become a software developer.
But because small, useful tools can turn a website from “another article site” into a practical destination.
Ultra-specific beats generic
The AI Mode post also made a strong point about going ultra-niche.
A small hobby website should probably not try to compete for a broad topic like:
Running
Cooking
Gardening
Photography
Chess
Fitness
Those are huge spaces.
But a more specific angle can be much more powerful.
For example:
Trail running for people over 50 with knee problems.
Beginner astronomy from light-polluted suburbs.
Container gardening for small UK patios.
Chess improvement for adults stuck around club level.
Baking sourdough in a cold kitchen.
Woodworking with limited tools in a small garage.
These topics are not just smaller.
They are more human.
They include context, limitations, frustrations, and real-life constraints.
That matters because AI Mode is often strongest with general information. It becomes less satisfying when the user has very specific circumstances.
That is where a highly focused hobby site can help.
The real conclusion: opportunity exists, but only for the right kind of website
The most important lesson from the AI Mode answer is not that hobby websites will automatically thrive.
They will not.
A generic hobby site full of basic articles may struggle badly.
A site that simply rewrites information already available everywhere else may have very little reason to exist.
But a hobby site built around real experience, original examples, practical resources, specific audiences, and useful tools has a much stronger case.
That is the real opportunity.
Not “AI Mode makes traffic easy.”
Not “small websites are saved.”
Not “just write about your passion and the algorithm will reward you.”
The better conclusion is this:
AI Mode raises the bar for weak content, but it may also expose the value of real human experience.
For weekend hobby website owners, that is encouraging.
It means the way forward is not to compete with AI at writing generic explanations.
The way forward is to build the things AI cannot easily be:
a real person testing real ideas,
a guide with lived experience,
a collector of practical examples,
a builder of useful tools,
and a trusted voice inside a specific hobby.
A practical way to think about your hobby site
If you are thinking of starting a hobby website now, do not begin by asking:
“What keywords can I rank for?”
A better set of questions would be:
What problems do beginners in this hobby keep running into?
What have I personally tried, tested, failed at, or improved?
What photos, examples, logs, comparisons, or experiments can I show?
What small tool, checklist, calculator, quiz, or planner would make the hobby easier?
What specific type of person am I helping?
Where does AI Mode give a decent answer, but still leave the user needing something more practical?
Those questions lead to a very different kind of website.
And probably a much better one.
Final thought
The rise of AI Mode is frightening if your website is only trying to provide generic answers.
But it is much less frightening if your website helps people do something, choose something, understand something from experience, or avoid mistakes you have already made.
That is why I think the AI Mode answer was directionally right, even if it was a little too enthusiastic.
Weekend hobby website owners do still have a chance.
But the opportunity is not where it used to be.
It is no longer enough to publish basic information and hope for traffic.
The stronger opportunity is to build a website that feels real, useful, specific, and hard to replace.
In other words:
Do not build a hobby encyclopaedia.
Build a living resource.