The moment Mac McConnell realized everything about search had changed was last summer’s Paris Olympics. Both of his parents voluntarily, without any prompting, Chat GPT Plan your day’s activities in the French capital. AI recommended specific travel companies, restaurants, and attractions that won a new kind of popularity lottery.
"Older people seemed just as comfortable using this intuitive interface as younger people." McConnell reflected in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. "It turns out that business is now recommended."
The observation is now Geostaris a Pear VC-backed startup working hard to help companies navigate perhaps the most significant change in online discovery since Google’s inception.
The company recently emerged from stealth with some impressive early customer traction, but it’s betting that the rise of AI-powered search presents a significant opportunity to reinvent the way businesses are found online. of Global AI search engine market Alone, it is projected to increase from $43.63 billion in 2025 to $108.88 billion by 2032.
Already the fastest growing company in the world PearX’s latest cohortWith just two founders and no employees, Geostar is approaching $1 million in annual recurring revenue in just four months.
Why Gartner predicts traditional search volume will drop 25% by 2026
The numbers tell a grim story of destruction. Gartner says that the volume of traditional search engines is 25% reduction by 2026mainly due to the rise of AI chatbots. Google’s AI Overview is now available below Billions of searches monthly. Researchers at Princeton University have found that optimizing these new AI systems can improve visibility. up to 40%.
"Search used to mean you had to please Google;" McConnell explained. "But from now on, you’ll need to optimize for four different Google interfaces: classic search, AI mode, Gemini, and AI Overview, each with different criteria. On top of that, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity each work differently."
This fragmentation is disrupting companies that have spent decades perfecting their Google search strategies. recent Forester research We found that 95% of B2B buyers plan to use generative AI in future purchasing decisions. However, most companies are still completely unprepared for this change.
"Those who are not participating in this now are missing out." Cihan Tas, co-founder and chief technology officer of Geostar, said: "Today, lawyers get 50% of their clients through ChatGPT. That’s just a massive change."
How language models read the web differently than traditional search engines
what Geostar There is also a growing group of competitors called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which represents a radical departure from traditional search engine optimization. While SEO focused primarily on keywords and backlinks, GEO requires understanding how large-scale language models parse, understand, and synthesize information across the web.
The technical challenges are formidable. Every website should function as what Tas calls it. "own small database" It can be understood by dozens of different AI crawlers, each with their own requirements and settings. Google’s system pulls from the existing search index. Chat GPT It relies heavily on structured data and specific content formats. Perplexity shows a significant preference for Wikipedia and trusted sources.
"Now the strategy is actually concise, clear and answers the questions. Because that’s what the AI is directly looking for." Tas explained. "What we’re actually doing is tuning something like an intelligent model that makes decisions in the same way that we make decisions."
Consider schema markup, the structured data that helps machines understand web content. Currently, only 30% of websites implement comprehensive schemas, but research shows that pages with good markup are 36% more likely to appear in AI-generated summaries. But most companies don’t even know what schema markup is. Much less, I don’t even know how to implement schema markup effectively.
Inside Geostar’s AI agent that continuously optimizes your website without human intervention
Geostar’s solution represents a broader trend in enterprise software: the rise of autonomous AI agents that can perform actions on behalf of businesses. The company embeds the so-called "environmental agent" We access client websites directly and continually optimize content and technical structure, even creating new pages based on patterns learned across our customer base.
"If you learn something about how content performs or how technical optimizations are performed, you can syndicate the same changes to the rest of your users, so everyone in your network benefits." McConnell said.
for red shiftThis approach led the cybersecurity company to see a 27% increase in mentions of AI within three months. In one case, Geostar identified a ranking opportunity. "Best DMARC vendor," High value search terms in the email security field. Their agents created and optimized content that achieved first-page rankings on both Google and ChatGPT within four days.
"We work for an agency that charges $10,000 a month." McConnell noted that Geostar’s pricing ranges from $1,000 to $3,000 per month. "For the first time, AI creates a situation where it can act like an agency but scale like software."
Why unlinked brand mentions are more important than ever in the age of AI
The impact of this change extends far beyond technical optimization. In the age of SEO, mentions without links were essentially worthless. In the age of AI, that calculus has been reversed. AI systems can analyze vast amounts of text to understand sentiment and context. This means that brand mentions across Reddit, news articles, and social media now directly influence how AI systems describe and recommend companies.
"If the New York Times mentions a company without linking to it, that company will actually benefit from the AI system." McConnell explained. "AI has the ability to massively analyze vast amounts of text and understand the sentiment surrounding the mention."
This created new vulnerabilities. A study by the Indian Institute of Technology and Princeton University found that AI systems exhibit a systematic bias toward third-party sources over brand-owned content. A company’s own website may have less influence in shaping perceptions about AI than what others say online.
Changing circumstances have also disrupted traditional indicators of success. While SEO focused on rankings and click-through rates, GEO must consider what researchers call impression metrics: how prominently and positively a brand appears within an AI-generated response, even if the user does not click through to the source.
SEO veterans and new entrants strive to dominate AI optimization, creating a growing market.
Geostar is not alone in recognizing this opportunity. companies like brand light, deepand Goody Every company is racing to help businesses navigate the new landscape. SEO industry, worth approx. $80 billion worldwideis rushing to adapt, with established players like Semrush and Ahrefs rushing to add AI visibility tracking capabilities.
However, the company’s founders previously built and sold a Y-Combinator-backed e-commerce optimization startup. Montbelieve that their technological approach gives them an edge. Unlike competitors that primarily provide dashboards and recommendations, Geostar’s agents proactively implement changes.
"Everyone is just adopting the same solutions that worked in previous eras and saying, “Let’s do this for AI instead.”" McConnell argued: "But if you think about what AI can really do, it can actually do the work for you."
The risks are particularly high for small and medium-sized businesses. While large companies can afford to hire specialized consultants and build in-house expertise, small businesses risk becoming invisible in AI-mediated searches. Geostar believes this is a major market opportunity. Almost half of the 33.2 million small businesses in the US have invested in SEO. Of the approximately 418,000 law firms in the United States, many Between $2,500 and $5,000 Perform monthly search optimization to stay competitive in the local market.
From a Kurdish village to PearX: An unlikely partnership shaping the future of search
For Tas, whose journey to Silicon Valley began in a small Kurdish village of just 50 people in Turkey, this is both an opportunity and a responsibility. Because his mother was battling cancer, he was unable to complete college and taught himself to program, eventually partnering with McConnell. McConnell and I worked together for a full year before we met in person.
"Don’t just copy and paste a previously existing solution." Tass emphasized. "This is different and unique to today."
Looking ahead, search transformation appears to be accelerating rather than stabilizing. Industry observers predict that search functionality will soon be built into productivity tools, wearables, and even augmented reality interfaces. Each new surface may have its own optimization requirements, further complicating the situation.
"Search will soon be our eyes and ears." McConnell predicted: "When Siri gets out of jail, whatever Jony Ive and OpenAI are building together will be something like a multimodal search interface."
Technical challenges are matched by ethical challenges. As companies scramble to influence AI recommendations, questions about manipulation, fairness, and transparency arise. Currently, GEO has no oversight body or established best practices, creating what some critics describe as a Wild West environment.
As companies grapple with these changes, one thing is certain. Gone are the days of simply optimizing for Google. Instead, a far more complex ecosystem is emerging, in which success requires understanding not only how machines index information, but also how they think about it, synthesize it, and ultimately decide what to recommend to the humans seeking answers.
For millions of businesses whose survival depends on being found online, mastering this new paradigm is not just an opportunity, it’s an existential imperative. The question is no longer whether to optimize for AI search, but whether businesses can adapt quickly enough to maintain attention as the pace of change accelerates.
McConnell’s parents attending the Olympics ushered in what is already becoming the norm. They did not look for a travel agency in Paris. They didn’t scroll through the results or click on the links. They simply asked ChatGPT what to do and the AI determined which businesses deserved their attention.
In the new discovery economy, the companies that win are not the ones that rank highest. Choose what the AI recommends.
