As more and more people turn to AI chatbots like Chatgpt to find things on the internet, the company’s online presence must change. Scrunch AI hopes to help businesses better serve a world where more AI robots and agents visit their websites than humans.
Scrunch AI says its platform helps companies review and optimize their presence on various AI search platforms and enables them to better understand how AI web crawls interact with their online information. Its system is updated every three days and allows companies to view how their information is displayed in AI search results in various demographic tips.
Chris Andrew, co-founder and CEO of Scrunch (above, right) said the platform can also help companies find information gaps and address inaccuracy. For example, the startup can help companies discover that AI search engines are purchasing their pricing information from an outdated part of their website, which they can then delete or update to improve search results.
Andrew, the former chief product officer of the rumored system, said he got the idea of Scrunch AI when he began to realize his online behavior changed.
“I realized I was visiting fewer sites,” Andrew said. “I expect answers from chatgpt, not Google’s 20 links. So, I think the first thing I do when outsourcing large-scale to AI agents and crawlers is browsing. The efficiency of browsing is inefficient in defining words, and if it does, the entire customer journey will change.”
He brought the idea to several CMOs who worked with him to validate it and found that the CMOs are starting to notice that their company is getting high-quality recommended traffic from AI search engines. However, the same tips about their company have produced different results on different AI search platforms.
“Your program is no longer what you say,” Andrew said. “That’s what you’re saying, plus third parties, there’s competitive websites. You’re going to want to monitor and visibility into this on a large scale.”
Andrew launched Scrunch AI in fall 2023 with co-founder and chief technology officer Robert Maccloy (above, left) and the product was launched in November 2024. Now, the company has signed 25 clients, including companies such as Lenovo and Bairesdev, as well as Penn State University.
Now, Scrunch AI has raised a $4 million seed round led by Mayfield, in addition to several angel investors including Clara Shih, former co-founder and CEO of Hearsay Systems; TJ Parker, co-founder of Pillpack; and WebFlow co-founder Bryant Chou. The company plans to use funds to continue building products.
Of course, Scrunch AI isn’t the only opportunity to help companies browse the new world of AI search. Deep Hopefully with a series of dashboards to help companies monitor the impact of their SEO, brands can enter tips and track various results and raise $3.5 million in venture capital.
More traditional marketing and PR agencies like Avenue Z Advertising has begun, i.e. they can also help companies improve how they perform in AI search. This market has absolutely potential for development.
Andrew believes his startup stands out because of his focus on customer journeys rather than the way brands appear in the initial search results. He believes that the company is not only focusing on human search results through AI search engines, but also focusing on searches performed by AI agents.
“I think people are like, ‘How do we use AI to make our website better?’ My mindset is like, “Your website needs to be an agent or a crawler in the future,” Andrew said. “The theory really blends with our customer base at the enterprise level, saying that our brand is no longer what we say. This is what Chatgpt, Gemini, Siri, Google AI overview says. ”
