The new sentence on the home page, the changed opening hours, a page in French: at many companies the website stays out of date because every change means a request to the agency or a course on the content management system. Anyone who wants to manage their website with AI writes in a chat what should change instead. This guide explains what can sensibly be delegated, where control must stay with you and how to organise changes so that nothing goes online by accident.
What can be done through an AI chat
For the day-to-day upkeep of a company website, a chat works well because most changes are short and easy to put into words. Typical requests are:
- change or shorten a text, for example opening hours, service descriptions or an announcement
- create, rename or remove a page
- add, move or delete sections
- rewrite texts, in a friendlier or more concise way
- translate texts into another language
- replace an image with another one that is already available
- improve the title and description for search engines
- adjust the menu
The chat is not meant for freely programming the design. A serious solution does not allow arbitrary program commands or free style instructions, but works with a fixed set of building blocks. This protects the website from layout errors that nobody can find later.
The principle: suggestion, preview, approval
If an AI may change your website, it should never decide alone what becomes public. A three-step approach has proved its worth:
- Suggestion. The AI first reads the current state and suggests a concrete change.
- Preview. You see what changes before anything is saved. Good solutions show the affected pages and fields, not just a summary.
- Approval. Only your click saves the change. Publishing is a separate, further step with its own confirmation.
This separation is more important than it first seems. A saved change is not public until you deliberately publish it. This way you can collect several changes, check them in the preview on a phone and on a screen, and put them online together.
Protection against overwriting is just as important: if two people have worked at the same time, the AI must not save the older state. A clean system therefore always works with the most recently loaded state and rejects changes made on an outdated state.
Changing and rewriting texts
The more precise the request, the better the result. Name the page, the section and the goal: “On the home page, change the opening hours to Monday to Friday, 7 am to 5 pm, and adjust the contact page.” For rewriting requests, a guideline on tone and length helps: “Shorten the text under Services, at most three sentences, in a formal tone.”
Always check what the AI has rewritten. Figures, names, prices and addresses are facts only you know. An AI should not invent them, and you should not approve any change where you are unsure about a detail.
Translating: multilingual without an agency
Multilingual websites rarely fail because of the technology, but because of the effort of translation. An AI can render a German text into French, Italian or English and so deliver a usable raw version. Treat this version as a draft: technical terms, company and product names and legal texts should be checked by people who speak the language. Especially for contracts, general terms and conditions and privacy texts, an automatic translation does not replace professional review.
Decide which languages you want to maintain permanently. Each language means that every future change to the original page must also be carried over there.
Images and search engine details
The AI replaces images only with images that are already in your media library. Upload new images yourself first and describe them briefly; the description serves as alternative text for people who have the text read aloud. Pay attention to the rights to photos: whoever publishes an image needs the permission of its author.
For search engines you maintain a title, a description and a preview image per page. The AI can make suggestions, such as a title with the main term of the page or a description in one or two sentences. Decide yourself whether the suggestion describes your offer correctly.
Versions and the way back
Even with a preview, mistakes happen: a typo, a wrong figure, a section that should not have gone online after all. So you need a way back that works without an emergency call-out. Every published version should be kept unchanged, and an earlier version must be re-publishable with a click. It is important that the current working state is not lost, so that you can correct the faulty version in peace.
Rights, data protection and copyright
Not everyone in the business should be allowed to do everything. Separate the right to edit the website from the right to publish it. That way an employee can prepare changes while management decides what goes online.
The Federal Act on Data Protection (DSG) requires that personal data be processed in line with good faith and proportionality (Art. 6, paras. 1–2) and that data security appropriate to the risk be ensured through suitable technical and organisational measures (Art. 8, para. 1). For the AI chat, a simple rule follows: enter only what is needed for the task. Passwords, access data and confidential customer data do not belong in a chat, not even to change a website. Also check where the service processes the data and whether this fits your commitments to customers.
The Copyright Act (URG) provides in Art. 10, para. 1 that the author decides whether, when and how a work is used. This applies to photos and texts you use on your website, regardless of whether an AI inserts them.
Practical example: Muster Café Seeblick GmbH
Muster Café Seeblick GmbH is a fictitious café with a restaurant and nine employees. On Monday morning the operations manager writes in the chat: “From May we have different opening hours, please change them on the home page and the contact page.” The AI reads the website, suggests the change in two places, and the manager sees both pages in the preview. She approves: the draft is saved, but not yet online.
She then asks for a new page “Summer menu” with three sections and an English version for guests at the lake. Both changes appear as separate previews; she approves these as well. A colleague with good English corrects two phrasings. Only then does the managing director, the only person with that right, publish all three changes together: three saved drafts, one publication.
In the afternoon it turns out that one dish on the summer menu is named wrongly. Instead of correcting in a hurry, the managing director first publishes the previous version again. She keeps the current draft with the new pages as her working state, corrects the name calmly in the evening and then publishes it again. The mistake was visible for only a short time.
Checklist
- Goal of the change clearly worded: page, section, desired result
- AI read the current state first, did not change from memory
- Preview checked on screen and on phone
- Figures, names and addresses checked yourself
- Translations checked by someone who knows the language, legal texts in particular
- New images uploaded and described first, image rights clarified
- Editing and publishing split between different people or rights
- Several changes collected and published together
- Way back known: publish an earlier version again
- No passwords or confidential data entered in the chat
How KMU | base helps
In Online | base you work in the AI chat or directly in the editor; both lead to the same draft.
1. The chat reads first. Before any change, the AI loads the current draft with pages, sections, media, search engine details, menu, redirects and domains. It treats the content of the website as text, not as an instruction. It can create, rename and delete pages, add, change, move and remove sections, rewrite texts or translate them into German, French, Italian and English, replace images with existing media, improve titles and descriptions, and change the menu, design and redirects. There is no free HTML or CSS.
2. Every change is a preview first. The approval card shows the name, the pages and the concrete changes. Approval only saves the draft. In addition, saving only happens if the state is still current; otherwise the system first asks for the draft to be reloaded.
3. Publishing is a separate step. Editing and publishing are separate permissions. Publication is triggered only by explicit confirmation, never by the AI on its own. The website picks up the new version within a minute. Beforehand, you check the state in the desktop and phone preview.
4. Versions with a way back. Every published version is kept unchanged. With “Publish this version” you bring back an earlier version; the current draft is preserved.
5. More than texts. Connecting a domain, checking the connection and additional websites can also be triggered in the chat, each time with an approval card. You maintain the articles of a shop with the tools of Finance | base, as described in the guide Online shop for SMEs.
What the AI does not replace: it does not check facts and does not decide what your company should say. Translations are raw versions that you should have reviewed for important texts. It does not create new images, but uses existing ones. If you are preparing a website move, you will find the preparation in the guide Website relaunch.
More about the product on the Online base page. Take a look at the demo or open a test account. If you have questions, we will help you via the contact page. Current terms are under Prices.
Sources
- Federal Act on Data Protection (DSG, SR 235.1), Art. 6, paras. 1–2 and Art. 8, para. 1, as at 7 July 2025: fedlex.admin.ch (German original), accessed on 04.11.2026.
- Federal Copyright Act (URG, SR 231.1), Art. 10, para. 1, as at 1 January 2025: fedlex.admin.ch (German original), accessed on 04.11.2026.
This guide does not replace legal or tax advice. Information as at 04.11.2026.