The internet is entering a new phase — one where AI agents, not humans, are doing the searching. A recent TechCrunch article about The Prompting Company, a Y Combinator-backed startup, highlights just how fast this change is happening. The company raised $6.5 million to help brands and products get mentioned inside AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude — because people already use those models to find what they need instead of Googling.
According to research cited in that report, retailers could see a 520% increase in AI-driven traffic this year compared with 2024. In other words, your next customer might not be a person typing a query — it might be an AI agent asking on their behalf.
This seismic shift is fueling the rise of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), a strategy designed to help brands stay discoverable not just to people but also to the algorithms and agents that now shape purchasing decisions.
The Rise of AI Agents as Consumers
For the first time in digital history, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT directly influence how consumers discover products.
As Kevin Chandra, co-founder and CEO of The Prompting Company, told TechCrunch:
“Most of the growth on websites has come from AI bots, not people. We’re already seeing developers ask AI tools for product recommendations inside their workflows.”【TechCrunch, Oct 30 2025】
These AI agents are quickly becoming the first touchpoint for product discovery. They’ll soon become the primary interface for transactions, too — capable of comparing products, making purchases, and handling returns without human intervention.
Emerging frameworks like Google’s Agent2Agent protocol and OpenAI’s Stripe partnership hint at what’s next: a world where AI agents can browse, decide, and buy on behalf of users.
If your product or brand isn’t visible to these agents — it’s effectively invisible to the next generation of digital consumers.
What Is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
Generative Engine Optimization is structuring your online presence so AI models can easily find, interpret, and cite your content when generating answers or recommendations.
While traditional SEO focuses on keyword rankings and backlinks, GEO is about entity clarity, structured data, and factual authority — the signals large language models use to determine whether your information is trustworthy enough to include in an AI-generated response.
As Search Engine Land explains, GEO is the “natural evolution of SEO in a world where search results are being replaced by synthesized, conversational answers.”¹
Put simply, SEO helps people find you. GEO helps machines understand you.
The Prompting Company and the Birth of AI-Facing Websites
What The Prompting Company discovered is simple but profound: most websites are built for people — not for AI.
To bridge that gap, they developed a platform that:
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Identifies purchase-intent queries AI models are already asking;
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Creates structured pages that directly answer those questions;
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Routes AI agents to those AI-optimized pages.
Chandra calls this creating an “AI-facing website” — a version of your site stripped of pop-ups, sliders, and marketing fluff, designed purely for machine readability.
The idea is that, while human visitors see your main site, AI crawlers and agents interact with the simplified, structured version. These “machine-readable mirrors” help LLMs quickly extract accurate product data, pricing, and availability.
This approach is rapidly gaining traction among tech-savvy brands. According to TechCrunch, the company’s customers already include Rippling, Rho, and Motion — and even a Fortune 10 enterprise.
The message is clear: if AI agents can’t easily parse your site, you won’t appear in their recommendations.
GEO vs. Traditional SEO — A Quick Comparison
| Aspect | SEO (Search Engine Optimization) | GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) |
|---|---|---|
| Target user | Human searchers | AI agents and chatbots |
| Output | Ranked web links | Conversational answers and recommendations |
| Optimization goal | Visibility in search results | Inclusion in AI responses and citations |
| Ranking signal | Keywords, backlinks, on-page factors | Structured data, factual accuracy, brand authority |
| Measurement | SERP rank, CTR, traffic volume | Brand mentions, AI citations, referral patterns |
As Foundation Inc. notes, GEO will not replace SEO but augment it — just as mobile optimization didn’t replace desktop SEO, but became essential to remain visible.²
Why GEO Matters More Than Ever
1. Search Traffic Is Fragmenting
Consumers are no longer starting every journey on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT what to buy, using Perplexity for research, and letting agents like Shopify Magic or Amazon Rufus guide purchases.
That means the funnel is shifting — search is moving from query to conversation.
2. AI Agents Are Scaling Faster Than Humans
Box CEO Aaron Levie recently predicted at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 that “we’ll have 100 to 1,000 times more AI agents than people” using enterprise systems. That exponential growth changes everything about marketing and discovery.
3. GEO Is About Influence, Not Just Rank
In AI-driven results, only a handful of sources are cited. When ChatGPT or Gemini pulls an answer, it doesn’t show 10 blue links — it synthesizes content from what it trusts. Being part of that answer is the new visibility metric.
How to Prepare Your Brand for AI Agents
1. Build an AI-Friendly Website Structure
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Use clean, structured HTML without excess JavaScript or complex frameworks.
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Incorporate schema markup (Product, Organization, FAQ, How-To).
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Create a lightweight, text-focused version of key pages for LLMs.
2. Use Machine-Readable Data
Ensure product catalogs, pricing, and FAQs are accessible via public APIs or structured datasets. Avoid gating vital information behind logins or scripts that AI crawlers can’t parse.
3. Focus on Entity Consistency
AI models rely heavily on entity linking. Keep your brand name, descriptions, and categories consistent across your website, LinkedIn, press mentions, and business directories.
4. Create Authoritative, Answer-Focused Content
Write content that directly answers likely AI-search questions in your field. For example, instead of optimizing for “best EHR systems,” create articles answering, “What is the most secure EHR platform for small practices?”
5. Monitor AI Visibility
New tools (like SEMrush’s AI Visibility) measure how often your brand is mentioned in AI answers. This is the next frontier of analytics — knowing when you’re part of the conversation.
The Business Case for GEO
Early data from startups like The Prompting Company suggest that brands using GEO-optimized pages see double-digit millions in monthly AI-driven visits. That’s traffic you can’t capture with SEO alone.
As generative engines begin handling transactions, attribution and advertising models will evolve. Chandra predicts a future of “conversion-driven GEO,” where being cited in AI results directly influences revenue.
For now, GEO’s greatest value is brand presence. When AI agents trust your data, they recommend you, and the recommendation is the new ranking.
Why Kieffer Consulting Believes GEO Is Essential
At Kieffer Consulting, we view Generative Engine Optimization as the natural next step in digital transformation. We help clients prepare their web, content, and brand infrastructure for a world where AI agents are customers.
Our strategy includes:
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Creating AI-friendly websites and schema-driven structures.
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Aligning SEO and GEO to maximize both human and machine visibility.
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Using data intelligence to track where your brand appears in AI-generated answers.
The brands that optimize for AI agents today will define digital leadership tomorrow.
FAQs
Q1. Are AI agents really “customers”?
Yes — they increasingly act on behalf of users to find, compare, and recommend products. Frameworks like Google’s Agent2Agent are making autonomous transactions possible.
Q2. Does GEO replace SEO?
No. GEO builds on SEO by adding an AI-readability layer. You still need great content and links, but structure and clarity matter more.
Q3. What is an AI-facing website?
An AI-facing website is a simplified version of your main site that serves structured data directly to AI models — no pop-ups, cookies, or scripts.
Q4. How can I measure GEO success?
Use emerging analytics tools to track citations, mentions, and AI-referral traffic. Over time, you’ll see increases in visibility inside generative platforms.
Q5. What’s the first step?
Audit your website’s structure and schema markup. Then, develop a strategy for producing content that answers real questions for both humans and machines.
Conclusion
AI agents are no longer futuristic — they influence millions of buying decisions daily. The web is evolving from search engines to generative engines, and Generative Engine Optimization is the key to staying visible.
Just as brands once learned to optimize for mobile or voice, they must now optimize for AI. That means building data-driven, structured, and machine-readable content that earns trust, not just clicks.
At Kieffer Consulting, we help organizations bridge that gap: designing AI-friendly sites, building authority across platforms, and future-proofing search strategies for the agent-first era.
If your business isn’t ready to be discovered by AI agents, now is the time to act — because the next generation of customers won’t be searching; they’ll be sending their agents.
