Step Away from SEO, Profound Helps Brands with AI Search Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been a priority for brands for over a decade, ensuring their websites and products get the most attention by ranking high on search engine results pages. But search is changing, and as consumers increasingly turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude to find things, brands need a new strategy.

Profound was launched to help brands better understand how they appear in AI searches by tracking common search queries about brands. For example, if a user is in the automotive industry, their dashboard would automatically include data on searches like “what’s the best SUV?” People can also use the platform to conduct more specific searches to learn how search results change by demographic or to dig deeper into how AI systems rank the trustworthiness of websites discussing specific products.

The New York-based company was founded earlier this year by James Cadwallader and Dylan Babbs, who met at the South Park Commons startup incubator. Cadwallader told TechCrunch that he and Babbs became fascinated by how AI was changing online search. Cadwallader said his experience working with large Fortune 500 brands as the former founder of influencer marketing agency Kyra helped shape the specific idea for Profound.

“In this new world of AI responses, how does Nike understand and control how they appear? If I ask ChatGPT about running shoes, it will give me four or five suggestions,” Cadwallader said. “Nike spends $4 billion a year on marketing, and hundreds of millions of people use these AI responses to research products and brands every day. How do we appear in this new world?”

The platform is dynamic, as opposed to a static snapshot, Babbs said, so as AI search evolves and may change the characteristics it favors — a common occurrence with SEO rankings — brands using Profound will be able to track changes and adapt.

Cadwallader said the startup is still in its infancy, but has already started working with a major branding agency; Profound also has two other deals in the works. The company is now emerging from stealth with $3.5 million in seed funding from a round that included Keith Rabois, through Khosla Ventures, Saga, South Park Commons and angel investors Scott Belsky and Balaji S. Srinivasan. Cadwallader said Profound plans to use the money to hire and continue developing its technology.

Ben Braverman, co-founder and managing partner at Saga, told TechCrunch that he met Cadwallader at a talk he gave at South Park Commons. “Once you start talking to (Cadwallader) about what he’s building, the energy just drips off of this guy,” Braverman said. “The more time I spent with him, who was a really nice guy, talking about where the puck was moving in AI, it was like, I need to spend more time with this person.”

Braverman added that he was able to eavesdrop on sales calls, and it seems that potential customers quickly understood the need for this type of technology. Braverman was also interested because he believes Profound is building a moat for itself, and the way the company handles the brands it works with will prevent those companies from wanting to build the technology in-house.

But that decision likely hasn’t been made yet. While Profound may be one of the companies looking to enter this space, it won’t be the last. As interest in AI search grows, existing SEO firms or marketing agencies will emerge in addition to other startups looking to develop their skills in the field.

“In this new world, every company, every business in every industry will want to know how they appear in AI responses,” Cadwallader said. “It will be profound to have a solution that every company in the world uses every day to understand how these AI systems are talking about them.”