Persons are more and more asking AI, not Google, to assist them uncover merchandise. A latest procuring report says People, this vacation season, will seemingly flip to giant language fashions to seek out items, offers, and gross sales as a substitute of conventional search.
Retailers might see as much as a 520% improve in visitors from chatbots and AI prompts in 2025 in comparison with 2024, in accordance with the report. For manufacturers, which means determining how you can present up in AI-generated suggestions, and quick.
This surge in AI-driven visitors is the wager behind The Prompting Firm, a YC-backed startup serving to merchandise get talked about in AI apps via 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 Purnama, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding and already counts Rippling, Rho, Movement, Vapi, Fondo, Kernel, and Traceloop as prospects.
“Over the previous 12 months, a lot of the development on web sites has come from AI bots, not individuals,” co-founder and CEO Chandra instructed TechCrunch in an interview. “We’re already seeing builders ask AI instruments for product suggestions inside their workflows, and we expect individuals, over time, will probably be much less concerned in elements of the buying funnel.”
As AI turns into the primary touchpoint for product discovery and brokers finally transact on a person’s behalf, The Prompting Firm believes manufacturers should discover ways to market to brokers in addition to people.
What which means, in accordance with 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 instructed TechCrunch. “However the fastest-growing phase of customers on the web right this moment is AI brokers and so they want a totally totally 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 robotically routes AI brokers to “AI-optimized pages.”
The Y Combinator-backed startup helps firms publish 1000’s of AI-friendly pages so LLMs can cite their solutions even after they don’t rank in conventional search engine optimisation. (YC has backed related startups, together with Relixir, Writesonic, and Bear.)
Whereas search engine optimisation nonetheless issues, Chandra argues that GEO is shortly changing into the precedence for manufacturers. In GEO, product outcomes floor organically primarily based on relevance to the dialog, not paid key phrases or search rankings.
This shift might also change how individuals purchase merchandise. Rising protocols, together with Google’s Agent2Agent 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, transferring them from discovery to transaction.
“Think about you’re a big e-commerce retailer. Customers can purchase gadgets, make returns, examine merchandise, or seek for promotions. We assist our prospects expose these actions to AI brokers. Proper now, these brokers aren’t but clicking these choices or accessing APIs straight, however we count on that to alter within the coming months,” stated 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 firms get found and really helpful by AI.”
Up to now, The Prompting Firm serves principally fintech, developer instruments, and enterprise SaaS prospects. The workforce says a Fortune 10 firm can also be utilizing its product, for which it presently hosts about half 1,000,000 pages.
Total, visitors pushed to consumer websites is within the double-digit thousands and thousands monthly. The Prompting Firm makes use of a subscription mannequin, charging prospects primarily based 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 making an attempt 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,” stated 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 firms and fast-growing startups. Kevin, Michelle, and Albert are repeat YC founders, and they’re superior.”