As extra folks flip to AI chatbots like ChatGPT to look issues up on the web, the best way firms strategy their on-line presence has to vary. Scrunch AI desires to assist enterprises higher put together for a world wherein extra AI bots and brokers go to their web site than people do.
Scrunch AI says its platform helps firms audit and optimize how they seem on varied AI search platforms and provides them higher visibility into how AI internet crawlers work together with their on-line data. Its system updates each three days and lets firms see how their data is introduced in AI search outcomes from buyer prompts of assorted demographics.
Chris Andrew, a co-founder and CEO of Scrunch (pictured above, on the proper), stated the platform additionally helps firms discover data gaps and resolve inaccuracies. For instance, the startup can assist firms discover out that an AI search engine was sourcing their pricing data from an outdated a part of their web site, after which they might delete that part or replace it to enhance the search end result.
Andrew, a former chief product officer at Rumour Methods, stated he obtained the thought for Scrunch AI when he started to appreciate a change in his personal on-line habits.
“I spotted I used to be visiting fewer web sites,” Andrew stated. “I used to be anticipating a solution from ChatGPT as a substitute of 20 hyperlinks from Google. And so I assumed the very first thing that’s being outsourced at scale to AI brokers and crawlers is searching. Looking is inefficient by the very definition of the phrase, and if that’s true, the whole buyer journey goes to vary.”
He took the thought to some CMOs he had labored with to validate the thought, and located that CMOs have been beginning to discover their firms have been getting high-quality referral visitors from AI serps. However, equivalent prompts about their firms produced totally different outcomes throughout totally different AI search platforms.
“Your program is now not what you say it’s,” Andrew stated. “It’s what you say it’s, plus third events, plus aggressive websites. You’re going to need to have monitoring and visibility towards that, at scale.”
Andrew launched Scrunch AI in fall 2023 with co-founder and CTO Robert MacCloy (pictured above, on the left), and launched the product in November 2024. Now, the corporate has signed 25 prospects, together with enterprises like Lenovo and BairesDev, and Penn State College.
Now, Scrunch AI has raised a $4 million seed spherical led by Mayfield along with a number of angel traders who embody Clara Shih, the previous co-founder and CEO of Rumour Methods; TJ Parker, a co-founder of PillPack; and Bryant Chou, a co-founder of Webflow. The corporate plans to make use of the funds to proceed constructing the product.
After all, Scrunch AI isn’t the one firm to determine the chance in serving to firms navigate the brand new world of AI search. Profound is trying to assist firms monitor their search engine optimisation presence by means of a sequence of dashboards the place manufacturers can enter prompts and monitor varied outcomes, and it has raised $3.5 million in enterprise capital.
Extra conventional advertising and marketing and PR companies like Avenue Z have began to promote that they can assist firms enhance how they present up in AI search, too. This market undoubtedly has potential to develop.
Andrew thinks his startup stands out due to its give attention to the client journey versus simply how a model reveals up in preliminary search outcomes. He feels the corporate can be taking it a step additional by not simply specializing in search outcomes by a human by means of an AI search engine, however moderately on searches carried out by AI brokers.
“I believe folks have been like, ‘How can we use AI to make our web site higher?’ And my mindset was like, ‘Your web site’s going to must be for an agent or crawler sooner or later,’” Andrew stated. “That principle has form of actually performed out with our buyer base on the enterprise degree saying our model is now not what we are saying it’s. It’s what ChatGPT, Gemini, Siri, Google AI Overviews say it’s.”