A former Google Search engineer is betting on the tip of conventional search engine optimization, and constructing instruments to assist entrepreneurs put together for what comes subsequent.
Andrew Yan, who left Google’s search workforce earlier this yr, co-founded Athena, a startup targeted on serving to manufacturers keep seen in AI-generated responses from instruments like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
The corporate launched final month with $2.2 million in funding from Y Combinator and different enterprise companies.
Athena is a part of a brand new wave of firms responding to a shift in how folks uncover data. As an alternative of searching search outcomes, individuals are more and more getting direct solutions from AI chatbots.
Consequently, the methods that when helped web sites rank in Google could not be sufficient to drive visibility.
Yan informed The Wall Road Journal:
“Firms have been spending the final 10 or 20 years optimizing their web site for the ‘10 blue hyperlinks’ model of Google. That model of Google is altering very quick, and it’s altering ceaselessly.”
Constructing Visibility In A Zero-Click on Internet
Athena’s platform is designed to indicate how completely different AI fashions interpret and describe a model. It tracks how chatbots speak about firms throughout platforms and recommends methods to optimize internet content material for AI visibility.
Based on the corporate, Athena already has over 100 prospects, together with Paperless Put up.
The broader development displays rising concern amongst entrepreneurs in regards to the rise of a “zero-click web,” the place customers get solutions straight from AI interfaces and by no means go to the underlying web sites.
Yan’s shift from Google to startup founder underscores how severely some search insiders are taking this transformation.
Reasonably than competing for rankings on a search outcomes web page, Athena goals to assist manufacturers affect the outputs of huge language fashions.
Profound Raises $20 Million For AI Search Monitoring
Athena isn’t the one firm engaged on this.
Profound, one other startup highlighted by The Wall Road Journal, has raised greater than $20 million from enterprise capital companies. Its platform displays how chatbots collect and relay brand-related data to customers.
Profound has attracted a number of giant purchasers, together with Chime, and is positioning itself as a necessary software for navigating the complexity of generative AI search.
Co-founder James Cadwallader says the corporate is making ready for a world the place bots, not folks, are the first guests to web sites.
Cadwallader informed The Wall Road Journal:
“We see a way forward for a zero-click web the place customers solely work together with interfaces like ChatGPT. And brokers or bots will change into the first guests to web sites.”
Saga Ventures’ Max Altman added that demand for this type of visibility information has surpassed expectations, noting that entrepreneurs are at the moment “flying utterly blind” in terms of how AI instruments signify their manufacturers.
search engine optimization Consultants Are Shifting Focus
The shift can be reaching practitioners. Cyrus Shepard, founding father of Zyppy search engine optimization, informed the Wall Road Journal that AI visibility went from being negligible at first of 2025 to 10–15% of his present workload.
By the tip of the yr, he expects it might signify half of his focus.
Referring to new platforms like Athena and Profound, Shepard mentioned:
“I’d classify all of them as in beta. However that doesn’t imply it’s not coming.”
Whereas investor estimates counsel these startups have raised only a fraction of the $90 billion search engine optimization trade, their traction signifies a necessity to deal with the challenges posed by AI search.
What This Means
These startups are early indicators of a bigger shift in how content material is surfaced and evaluated on-line.
With AI instruments synthesizing solutions from a number of sources and infrequently skipping over conventional hyperlinks, entrepreneurs face a brand new type of visibility problem.
Firms like Athena and Profound try to fill that hole by giving entrepreneurs a window into how generative AI fashions see their manufacturers and what might be performed to enhance these impressions.
It’s not clear but which methods will work greatest on this new setting, however the race to determine it out has begun.
Featured Picture: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
