Why we started Search Party: Infrastructure for the next evolution of SEO

In just a few short years, AI has transformed the way we work, the way we communicate, and the way we live. The pace of adoption is accelerating faster than any technological shift before it. As a brand, you face a stark truth: adopt or get left behind.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the evolution of SEO into generative engine optimization (GEO), from optimizing for search engines to optimizing for AI.

Today, AI still feels like a shiny new power tool. Tomorrow, it will be an omni-tool. The default interface for how people search, discover, and decide what to buy.

That’s why we started Search Party. Our mission is to prepare brands for this shift and give our customers the infrastructure that becomes an unfair advantage when AI visibility flips from strategy to survival.

The seismic shift no marketer can ignore

Every decade or so, marketing undergoes a seismic shift that rewrites the rules of how consumers and brands connect.

1990s: The rise of the Internet itself. Brands suddenly needed a website to be taken seriously, and e-commerce reshaped how people discovered and purchased products.

2000s: Google defined the playbook. SEO and SEM became the cornerstones of digital marketing, and entire industries were built around climbing the rankings.

2010s: Mobile and social platforms took over. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok became the engines of discovery. Influencer marketing exploded as trust shifted from institutions to individuals.

2020s: Now we face another transformation with AI. It’s not just a side channel or a tactic. AI is becoming the front door to the internet and the layer that mediates how people make lifestyle decisions, not just product decisions.

Each of these shifts has created massive winners and losers. I’m constantly reminded of the infamous 1995 Newsweek op-ed by technologist Clifford Stoll titled “Why the Web Won’t Be Nirvana.”

In it, he claimed:

“No online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher, and no computer network will change the way government works.”

Hilarious in hindsight.

Make no mistake, AI has its skeptics, too. But unlike the internet in the 90s, no one seriously doubts that this technology will reshape industries. The only question is how much.

What’s at stake right now

AI is still in its infancy, babbling and stumbling around as it learns what we want it to do. Even so, its power is clear. AI has sped up discovery, slashed barriers to content creation, boosted personalization, and saved hours of manual search.

But with advantages come risks brands can't ignore.

Top-of-funnel traffic collapse

Ahrefs found a drop of roughly 34% in clicks for organic results on keywords where AI Overviews appear.

The collapse is far more dire for many companies.

For example, Conductor saw pages drop by as much as 60% after the full rollout of Google’s AI Overviews. And that doesn’t account for users who have abandoned Google altogether for answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Clause.

The implication is clear: brands have lost a steady stream of discovery traffic that once fueled their funnels.

Middle-of-funnel visibility erosion

The impact isn’t just at the top of the funnel. Queries that used to drive product research and comparison (the questions buyers ask in the middle of their journey) now get answered directly inside AI Overviews and LLM interfaces.

That means fewer people clicking through to your site, fewer opportunities to frame the conversation, and fewer touchpoints to build trust with potential consumers.

The rise of zero-click search

We call this dynamic zero-click search. Instead of moving through your website, buyers get their answers inside the AI environment and move on.

For brands, this is dangerous for two reasons:

1. Loss of control: You no longer own how your brand is described. An AI system decides based on whatever source it trusts most. Maybe it’s you, perhaps it’s a competitor.
2. Loss of engagement: When buyers don’t land on your site, you lose the chance to educate them, capture them, and nurture them into customers.

It’s not just about traffic metrics going down. The greater risk is brands being written out of the buyer journey altogether.

If you want to future-proof your brand, you have to start now.

Very soon, consumers won’t browse comparison sites, scan product pages, or fill out forms. Their AI agents will do it for them. They’ll handle search, evaluation, and even transactions from start to finish.

That means the funnel as we know it collapses. Awareness, research, and conversion no longer happen on your website or across third-party channels. They all get mediated by AI.

Your website still matters in this world, but not in the way it used to. It simply becomes training data. A reference point for the models that decide whether your brand makes the cut.

The marketer’s job shifts from “optimizing for clicks” to “optimizing for answers.” If you’re not the answer, you don’t exist.

This is why adopting early matters. The brands that invest in visibility now will

• Train the models that will be making the decisions tomorrow.
• Build trust signals that compound over time.
• Lock in visibility before competitors realize what’s happening.

The advantage won’t be subtle. The brands that secure visibility in AI will take market share directly from those that don’t.

That’s why we built Search Party.

Brands don’t need another “tool” to prepare for this shift. They need new infrastructure. And that’s exactly why we built Search Party.

Traditional SEO platforms solve for keywords, rankings, and clicks. That world is crumbling.

AI discovery runs on an entirely different foundation of prompts, citations, and model outputs. Optimizing for Google’s blue links won’t prepare you for a future where AI decides which brand is the answer.

Search Party is the world’s most advanced AI visibility platform, built to give brands full autonomy in this new era.

With Search Party, you can:

• Track visibility across all models. See exactly how major LLMs talk about their brand compared to competitors. Zoom out for a high-level view or drill down into prompt-level analytics.
• Identify the sources that matter. Understand which domains and pages shape AI-generated answers. Then, prioritize the highest-impact opportunities to control the conversation.
• Execute autonomously. Create and optimize content for LLMs.Secure the right citation opportunities and push updates continuously. Run it all in the background on a perpetual loop.

Search Party is not just another analytics dashboard. It’s a complete operating system that’s always on, always learning, and always working to make sure you show up where and when it counts.

Who are ‘we’?

My brother Ryan and I previously co-founded GRIN, the industry’s leading influencer marketing platform.

We grew GRIN from a kitchen-table idea to Sacramento's first tech unicorn, valued at $1 billion. Along the way, we worked with some of the world’s biggest brands and watched firsthand how fast a marketing channel can reshape entire industries.

That experience taught us two things:

1. How to recognize when an industry is on the cusp of a massive shift
2. How critical it is to build the right infrastructure early, before the playbook calcifies and opportunity narrows

With Search Party, we’re applying those lessons to the next frontier: AI visibility.

The shift will make influencer marketing look microscopic by comparison. And just like GRIN became the backbone of a new category, we’re building Search Party as the infrastructure for brands to survive and thrive in an AI-first world.

We also know this is a long putt. AI search is still early, and the world is writing the rules in real time. But as visibility erodes, brands must solve today’s problem to earn the right to lead tomorrow’s transformation.

Our mission is simple: power how brands win the most important user of the next decade. AI.

Join us: Get started with Search Party for free today

Every marketer, every operator, and every brand will face this shift.

Some will fade from the answers. Others will take control and own them.

If you’re ready to make sure your brand shows up in AI-generated answers, now is the time to move.

Get started with Search Party for free today.