The moment McConnell found out about the discovery that changed everything came at the Paris Olympics last summer. Both his parents, independently and without prompting, turned to him chatgpt To plan your day’s activities in the French capital. The AI recommended specific tour companies, restaurants and attractions – businesses that had won a new kind of visibility lottery.
"It was almost like this intuitive interface that older people were just as comfortable using as younger people," McConnell recalled in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. "I could just see that businesses were now being recommended."
That observation has now become the basis of geostarA peer VC-backed startup that is racing to help businesses navigate what may be the most significant change to online search since Google’s founding.
The company, which recently emerged from stealth with impressive initial customer traction, is betting that the rise of AI-powered search represents a significant opportunity to reinvent the way companies find people online. Global AI Search Engine Market This alone is projected to grow from $43.63 billion in 2025 to $108.88 billion by 2032.
Already the fastest growing company PeerX’s newest groupGeoStar is quickly approaching $1 million in annual recurring revenue in just four months – with just two founders and no employees.
Gartner estimates traditional search volume will decline 25% by 2026
The numbers tell a sobering story of disruption. Gartner estimates that traditional search engine volume will grow 25% decline by 2026Mainly because of the rise of AI chatbots. Google’s AI observations will now appear find billions Monthly. Princeton University researchers have found that optimizing these new AI systems can increase visibility up to 40%,
"Search used to mean that you had to please Google," McConnell explained. "But now you have to customize four different Google interfaces – traditional search, AI mode, Gemini and AI overview – each with different criteria. And then ChatGPT, Cloud and Perplexity each do different things on top of that."
This fragmentation is creating chaos for businesses that have spent decades perfecting their Google search strategies. a fresh Forrester study Found that 95% of B2B buyers plan to use generative AI in future purchasing decisions. Yet most companies are woefully unprepared for this change.
"Anyone who isn’t on it now is losing," said Cihan Tas, co-founder and chief technology officer of JioStar. "We see that lawyers are now getting 50% of their clients through ChatGPT. It’s just such a big change."
How language models read the web differently than search engines
What geostar And a growing group of competitors, called generative engine optimization, or GEO, represent a fundamental departure from traditional search engine optimization. Where SEO focuses primarily on keywords and backlinks, GEO requires understanding how large language models parse, understand, and synthesize information across the web.
The technical challenges are formidable. Every website should now function as Tas says "It has its own small database" Capable of being understood by dozens of different AI crawlers, each with unique needs and preferences. Google’s systems pull from their existing search index. chatgpt Relies heavily on structured data and specific content formats. The confusion shows a marked preference for Wikipedia and authoritative sources.
"Now the strategy has to be really short, clear and answer the question, because that’s what the AI is directly looking for," Tas explained. "You’re actually moving toward somewhat of an intelligent model that makes decisions the same way we make decisions."
Consider schema markup, structured data that helps machines understand web content. While only 30% of websites currently implement comprehensive schema, research shows that pages with proper markup are 36% more likely to appear in AI-generated summaries. Yet most businesses don’t even know what schema markup is, let alone how to implement it effectively.
Inside GeoStar’s AI agents that continuously optimize websites without human intervention
Geostar’s solution embodies a broader trend in enterprise software: the rise of autonomous AI agents that can take actions on behalf of businesses. The company embeds what it says "ambient agent" Directly into customer websites, constantly optimizing content, technical configuration, and even creating new pages based on patterns learned across your entire customer base.
"Once we learn something about the way content is displayed, or the way technical optimizations are performed, we can syndicate the same change across the remaining users so that everyone in the network benefits," McConnell said.
For redshiftAt one cybersecurity company, this approach led to a 27% increase in AI mentions within three months. In one case, GeoStar identified an opportunity to rank "best DMARC vendors," A high-value search term in the email security field. The company’s agents created and optimized content that achieved first page rankings on both Google and ChatGPT within four days.
"We are working with an agency that charges $10,000 per month," McConnell said, noting that GeoStar costs $1,000 to $3,000 monthly. "AI creates a situation where, for the first time, you can act like an agency, but you can scale like software."
Why brand mentions without links matter now more than ever in the AI age
The implications of this shift extend far beyond technological adaptation. In the SEO era, mentions without links were essentially useless. In the age of AI, that calculation has been reversed. AI systems can analyze large amounts of text to understand sentiment and context, meaning mentions of brands on Reddit, in news articles, or on 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 analyze large amounts of text at scale, and it will understand the sentiment around that mention."
This has created new weaknesses. Research from the Indian Institute of Technology and Princeton found that AI systems show a systematic bias towards third-party sources compared to brand-owned content. A company’s own website may be less influential in shaping AI perceptions than what others say about it online.
The changing landscape has also disrupted the traditional parameters of success. Where SEO has focused on rankings and click-through rates, GEO should take into account what researchers call impression metrics – how prominently and positively a brand appears within AI-generated responses, even when users never click on the source.
A growing market as SEO giants and new players race to dominate AI optimization
GeoStar is hardly alone in recognizing this opportunity. companies like brandlight, deepAnd Goody All are rushing to help businesses navigate the new landscape. SEO industry, worth approx. $80 billion globallyStruggling to adapt, established players like SEMrush and Ahrefs are rushing to add AI visibility tracking features.
But the company’s founder, who previously built and sold a Y Combinator-backed e-commerce optimization startup, said montoThe belief is that their technical approach gives them an edge. Unlike competitors that provide massive dashboards and recommendations, JioStar’s agents proactively implement changes.
"Everyone is adopting the same solutions that worked in the previous era and simply saying, ‘We’ll do this for AI instead.’" McConnell argued. "But when you think about what AI is actually capable of doing, it can really work for you."
The stakes are especially high for small and medium-sized businesses. While larger corporations can afford to hire specialized consultants or develop internal expertise, smaller companies risk becoming invisible in AI-mediated search. Geostar sees this as its primary market opportunity: nearly half of the 33.2 million small businesses in the US invest in SEO. Many of the approximately 418,000 law firms in the U.S. spend Between $2,500 and $5,000 Monthly on search optimization to stay competitive in local markets.
From a Kurdish village to PierX: The unlikely partnership that is creating the future of search
For Tas, whose journey to Silicon Valley began in a small Kurdish village in Turkey with just 50 residents, the current moment represents both opportunity and responsibility. His mother’s battle with cancer prevented him from finishing college, leading him to teach himself programming and eventually partner with McConnell – whom he worked with for a full year before meeting in person.
"We are not just copying and pasting a solution that existed before," Tas insisted. "This is something that is different and uniquely possible today."
Looking ahead, the search transformation appears to be accelerating rather than stagnating. Industry observers predict that search functionality will soon be embedded in productivity tools, wearables, and even augmented reality interfaces. Each new surface will likely have its own optimization requirements, further complicating the scenario.
"Soon, the search will be in our eyes, in our ears," McConnell predicted. "When Siri gets out of her prison, whatever Jony Ive and OpenAI are creating together will be like a multimodal search interface."
Technical challenges are matched by ethical challenges. As businesses struggle to influence AI recommendations, questions are rising about manipulation, fairness, and transparency. There is currently no oversight body or established best practices for GEO, which some critics describe as a Wild West environment.
As businesses grapple with these changes, one thing seems certain: the era of optimizing just for Google is over. In its place is emerging a more complex ecosystem where success requires understanding not only how machines index information, but how they think about it, synthesize it, and ultimately decide what to recommend to humans seeking answers.
For the millions of businesses whose survival depends on being discovered online, mastering this new paradigm is not just an opportunity – it is an existential imperative. The question is no longer whether to adapt to AI search, but rather whether companies can adapt fast enough to remain visible as the pace of change accelerates.
At the Olympics, McConnell’s parents were previewing what was already becoming the norm. He did not search for tour companies in Paris. They didn’t scroll through the results or click on the links. They simply asked ChatGPT what to do – and the AI decided which businesses were worthy of their attention.
In the new economy of search, the businesses that win won’t be the ones that rank highest. Those will be the ones the AI chooses to recommend.
