As consumers increasingly turn to AI for product discovery, retailers must adapt. A recent report indicates that this holiday season, many Americans will prefer AI to traditional search engines for finding gifts and deals. Shifting traffic dynamics mean brands need to prioritize their visibility in AI-generated recommendations.
The rise of AI-driven shopping could see retailers experience up to a staggering 520% traffic increase from chatbot interactions and AI prompts by 2025, compared to 2024. This shift signifies an urgent need for brands to strategize around AI-generated recommendations to safeguard their market presence.
A startup at the forefront of this emerging landscape is The Prompting Company, a Y Combinator-backed venture that aims to help products gain visibility in AI applications through Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). GEO prepares businesses for a future where AI agents autonomously search the internet for users.
Founded by Kevin Chandra, Michelle Marcelline, and Albert Purnama just four months ago, The Prompting Company has already secured $6.5 million in seed funding and is working with clients like Rippling, Rho, and Motion, among others.
“Over the past year, most of the growth on websites has come from AI bots, not humans,” explained Chandra in a TechCrunch interview. “Developers are already using AI tools for product recommendations within their workflows, signaling a shift where human involvement in purchasing funnels may diminish over time.”
As AI continues to serve as the initial touchpoint for product discovery, there is an increasing need for brands to adjust their marketing strategies to appeal not just to consumers but also to AI agents. This means crafting an AI-focused version of their websites that eliminates unnecessary elements, aimed specifically at enhancing usability for AI agents.
“Most businesses still design websites only for humans,” Chandra noted. “However, the fastest-growing segment of internet users today are AI agents, and they require a fundamentally different interface.”
The functionality of The Prompting Company revolves around its ability to identify the queries AI agents are generating, which are rooted in specific purchase intents. By analyzing these inquiries, it creates structured content tailored to answer them, effectively guiding AI agents to “AI-optimized pages.”
This means enabling companies to publish thousands of AI-friendly pages that can be utilized by Large Language Models (LLMs), even if these pages do not rank well through traditional search engine optimization (SEO) methods. While SEO is still significant, Chandra states that GEO is rapidly becoming critical for brand visibility.
In GEO, product information emerges organically based on relevance to ongoing conversations rather than through paid ads or conventional search rankings. This paradigm shift could transform consumer purchasing behaviors, especially as technologies like Google’s Agent2Agent framework gain traction, allowing AI agents to complete purchases seamlessly.^1
“Picture a scenario where users can buy items, process returns, compare products, or search for promotions at a large e-commerce store,” said Chandra. “We empower our clients to make these actions accessible to AI agents, enabling a seamless purchasing experience in the near future.”
Currently, The Prompting Company mainly serves clients in fintech, developer tools, and enterprise software, with a Fortune 10 company also utilizing its services. As of now, the startup hosts approximately 500,000 pages, driving double-digit millions of monthly visits to client sites.
Their subscription model charges businesses based on tracked prompts and hosted pages, establishing a clear revenue framework as they grow. The co-founders, who previously collaborated on the Y Combinator-backed Typedream, have a track record of success and innovation, setting a strong foundation for their latest venture.
By leveraging the seed funding secured from notable investors like Peak XV Partners and Base10, alongside collaborations with industry giants like Nvidia, The Prompting Company is poised to revolutionize product discovery as AI-powered solutions evolve as a primary channel. As Arnav Sahu of Peak XV Partners aptly put it, “If your product isn’t discovered or cited in ChatGPT, you’re ngmi.”
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