Persons are more and more asking AI, not Google, to assist them uncover merchandise. A current procuring report says People, this vacation season, will seemingly flip to giant language fashions this season to seek out items, offers, and gross sales as a substitute of conventional search.
Retailers might see as much as a 520% improve in site visitors from chatbots and AI prompts in 2025 in comparison with 2024, in response to the report. For manufacturers, meaning determining present up in AI-generated suggestions, and quick.
This surge in AI-driven site visitors is the wager behind The Prompting Firm, a YC-backed startup serving to merchandise get talked about in AI apps by GEO (generative engine optimization), a method designed for a future the place AI brokers browse the web on customers’ behalf.
The four-month-old startup, based by Kevin Chandra, Michelle Marcelline and Albert Punama, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding and already counts Rippling, Rho, Movement, Vapi, Fondo, Kernel, and Traceloop as clients.
“Over the previous yr, many of the development on web sites has come from AI bots, not individuals,” co-founder and CEO Chandra advised TechCrunch in an interview. “We’re already seeing builders ask AI instruments for product suggestions inside their workflows, and we predict individuals, over time, will probably be much less concerned in components of the buying funnel.”
As AI turns into the primary touchpoint for product discovery and brokers ultimately transact on a consumer’s behalf, The Prompting Firm believes manufacturers should learn to market to brokers in addition to people.
What meaning, in response to Chandra, is that manufacturers will want an AI-facing web site, a model of their website made for brokers with out navigation bars, pop-ups, or advertising and marketing fluff. “Most companies nonetheless design web sites just for people,” Chandra advised TechCrunch. “However the fastest-growing phase of customers on the web at this time is AI brokers they usually want a very completely different interface.”
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Right here’s how the platform works: First, it identifies and analyzes the questions AI brokers are asking by probing fashions to uncover particular purchase-intent queries. It then creates structured content material that solutions these questions and mechanically routes AI brokers to “AI-optimized pages.”
The Y Combinator-backed startup helps corporations publish 1000’s of AI-friendly pages so LLMs can cite their solutions even once they don’t rank in conventional search engine optimization. (YC has backed comparable startups, together with Relixir, Writesonic, and Bear.)
Whereas search engine optimization nonetheless issues, Chandra argues that GEO is rapidly changing into the precedence for manufacturers. In GEO, product outcomes floor organically based mostly on relevance to the dialog, not paid key phrases or search rankings.
This shift can also change how individuals purchase merchandise. Rising protocols, together with Google’s Agent-to-Agent framework and OpenAI’s partnership with Stripe, might additional speed up adoption by permitting AI brokers to browse and full purchases on behalf of customers, shifting them from discovery to transaction.
“Think about you’re a big e-commerce retailer. Customers should buy objects, make returns, evaluate merchandise, or seek for promotions. We assist our clients expose these actions to AI brokers. Proper now, these brokers aren’t but clicking these choices or accessing APIs instantly, however we anticipate that to alter within the coming months,” mentioned Chandra. “As soon as that turns into widespread and attribution improves, we see a path towards extra advertising- or conversion-driven fashions. For now, we’re targeted on serving to corporations get found and beneficial by AI.”
To this point, The Prompting Firm serves principally fintech, developer instruments, and enterprise SaaS clients. The group says a Fortune 10 firm can also be utilizing its product, for which it at present hosts about half one million pages.
General, site visitors pushed to shopper websites is within the double-digit thousands and thousands per 30 days. The Prompting Firm makes use of a subscription mannequin, charging clients based mostly on the variety of prompts tracked and pages hosted.
The corporate’s founders, Indonesian immigrants who met as freshmen, beforehand constructed YC-backed Typedream (YC W20), a startup that allowed customers to construct and launch web sites in minutes with AI, earlier than Lovable and newer entrants took off (beehiiv acquired Typedream final June). The founders additionally constructed Cotter, a passwordless authentication SDK that was acquired by Stytch.
With The Prompting Firm, they’re attempting to alter how individuals uncover and buy merchandise within the AI period. The seed cash, raised from Peak XV Companions, Base10, Y Combinator, Firedrop, and angels, together with Logan Kilpatrick, will assist the corporate scale its platform and partnerships as AI-powered discovery turns into the brand new distribution channel. The startup can also be collaborating with NVIDIA on next-generation AI search.
“In case your product isn’t found or cited in ChatGPT, you’re ngmi,” mentioned Arnav Sahu, companion at Peak XV Companions. “We’re thrilled to again The Prompting Firm as they construct the core infrastructure for product discovery—already powering Fortune 10 corporations and fast-growing startups. Kevin, Michelle, and Albert are repeat YC founders, and they’re superior.”
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