Consumers are increasingly turning to AI rather than traditional search engines like Google to discover products. A recent shopping report indicates that during this year's holiday season, Americans are likely to rely on large language models (LLMs) for gift ideas, deals, and promotions instead of conventional search tools.

The report highlights that by 2025, traffic to retailers from chatbots and AI-generated prompts could surge by up to 520% compared to 2024. For brands, this means they must quickly adapt to ensure visibility in AI-driven recommendations.

This explosive growth in AI-powered traffic underpins the strategy of Prompting Company. The Y Combinator (YC)-backed startup specializes in generative engine optimization (GEO), helping products gain AI-driven recommendations—a tactic designed for a future where AI agents will navigate the internet on behalf of users.

Founded just four months ago by Kevin Chandra, Michelle Marcelline, and Albert Punama, the startup has already raised $6.5 million in seed funding. Its client roster includes companies like Rippling, Rho, Motion, Vapi, Fondo, Kernel, and Traceloop.

"Over the past year, website traffic growth has been driven primarily by AI bots rather than human users," Chandra, co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch. "We’ve observed developers consulting AI tools for product recommendations in their workflows, and we anticipate human involvement in purchasing decisions will continue to decline."

As AI becomes the primary touchpoint for product discovery—and eventually handles transactions autonomously—Prompting Company argues that brands must learn to market to both AI agents and humans simultaneously.

Chandra explains this requires an "AI-facing website"—a version optimized for AI agents, stripped of navigation bars, pop-ups, or excessive marketing content. "Most businesses still design websites exclusively for human users," he noted. "But the fastest-growing user segment online today is AI agents, which demand entirely different interfaces."

The platform operates by first identifying purchase-intent queries from AI models, analyzing questions posed by AI agents. It then creates structured content to address these queries and directs AI agents to "AI-optimized pages."

The YC-incubated startup helps businesses publish thousands of "AI-friendly pages," ensuring LLMs can reference their content even if these pages rank poorly in traditional SEO.

While SEO remains relevant, Chandra believes GEO is rapidly becoming a priority for brands. In GEO systems, product recommendations emerge organically based on conversational relevance rather than paid keywords or search rankings.

This shift could also transform shopping behaviors. Emerging protocols—such as Google’s Agent-to-Agent framework and OpenAI’s collaboration with Stripe—will enable AI agents to browse and purchase products on behalf of users, accelerating the transition from product discovery to checkout.

"Imagine a major e-commerce platform where users shop, return items, compare products, or search for deals. Our service helps clients expose these functionalities to AI agents," Chandra said. "Currently, these agents can’t directly click options or access APIs, but we expect this to change soon. Once adoption scales and attribution tracking improves, we’ll explore ad-based or conversion-driven business models. For now, our focus is ensuring clients get discovered and recommended by AI."

Prompting Company’s current clientele spans fintech, developer tools, and enterprise SaaS. The team revealed that a Fortune 10 company uses its platform, hosting approximately 500,000 pages. Overall, the startup drives tens of millions of monthly visits (double-digit growth) to client sites. It operates on a subscription model, charging based on tracked prompts and hosted pages.

The three Indonesian-born founders met as college freshmen. Previously, they co-founded Typedream (YC W20), an AI-powered website builder acquired by beehiiv in June 2023, and developed Cotter, a passwordless authentication toolkit acquired by Stytch.

With Prompting Company, they aim to redefine product discovery and purchasing in the AI era. The seed round was led by Peak XV Partners, Base10, Y Combinator, Firedrop, and angel investors like Logan Kilpatrick. The funding will scale the platform and expand partnerships, including collaboration with NVIDIA on next-gen AI search technology.

"If your product isn’t discoverable or referenced in ChatGPT, you’re essentially 'ngmi' (not gonna make it)," said Arnav Sahu, partner at Peak XV Partners. "Prompting Company is building core infrastructure for product discovery, already serving Fortune 10 firms and high-growth startups. We’re thrilled to back this exceptional team of serial YC founders."