For better or for worse, it looks like AI search is here to stay. Lately, every relevant generative AI startup and tech company is scrambling to get their AI search product into the market. As users increasingly shift toward these products and away from search engines, conventional optimization strategies are slowly becoming insufficient. At the same time, businesses may start seeing incoming real (human) traffic redirected from AI search products but also face challenges, like discrepancies between the information displayed by these products and the one in the most up-to-date version of their websites.

Rapid Enterprise Adoption

Scrunch AI has officially launched out of beta with a $4 million seed round led by Mayfield as the solution to precisely these challenges. Scrunch AI proposes that businesses need new strategies to maintain visibility and control their customer journey as AI search increasingly replaces traditional search engines. Thus, it provides customers with a platform to analyze, monitor, and optimize their presence in AI search results.

During the last three months, Scrunch AI has seen promising early adoption, with over 25 enterprise customers signing on during its beta phase, including major organizations like Lenovo, BairesDev, Crunchbase, Fictiv, and Penn State. This swift adoption rate is undoubtedly a signal of growing recognition of the fundamental shift that is changing how customers discover products and services.

The New Marketing Landscape

According to Scrunch AI, one of the more worrying consequences of turning to AI search rather than conventional search engines is that companies that aren't adequately recognized by AI systems risk disappearing from the customer journey entirely. According to the startup's data, customers who use AI search to discover new brands are twice as likely to convert than customers who reach new brands through traditional search because the former are further down the purchase funnel. Scrunch AI claims that some businesses have even seen their products sell out because they appear on AI search recommendations.

Platform Capabilities

The Scrunch AI platform focuses on four key areas:

  1. Monitoring - Starting with an in-depth analysis of a client's online presence helps understand and optimize how AI crawlers see their product.
  2. Knowledge Hub - Since brand-related content goes beyond primary sources, Scrunch AI enables its clients to resolve any discrepancies that may arise
  3. Insights - Practical recommendations to boost visibility and relevance in AI-generated results
  4. Journey Mapping - Visualization of how AI agents and crawlers interpret and represent the business.

With this funding round, Scrunch AI plans to accelerate product development and expand its market reach, positioning itself as an essential tool for companies navigating what it believes will be the inevitable transition to an AI-first search landscape.