The Future of AI SEO Platforms: Will Established Companies Dominate?
The CEO of Conductor, Seth Besmertnik, recently sparked a discussion on LinkedIn about the future of AI SEO platforms. He suggested that established companies like Conductor, Semrush, and Ahrefs will dominate the market, while 95% of startups will disappear. However, others argued that smaller companies will find their niche and that startups may be better positioned to serve user needs.
Established Companies vs. Startups
Besmertnik argued that established companies have over a decade of experience crawling the web and scaling data pipelines, which smaller organizations cannot compete with. He wrote: "We work with 700+ enterprise brands and have 100+ engineers, PMs, and designers. They are all 100% focused on an AI search only future… Collectively, our companies have hundreds of millions of ARR and maybe 1000x more engineering horsepower than all these companies combined." However, he also acknowledged that established companies have some tech debt and legacy, but believes that their strengths outweigh these disadvantages.
The Role of "Lifestyle" Businesses
Besmertnik’s remarks suggested that smaller tool companies earning one to three million dollars in annual recurring revenue, which he termed "lifestyle" businesses, would continue as viable companies but stood no chance of moving upward to become larger and more established enterprise-level platforms. However, Rand Fishkin, cofounder of SparkToro, defended the smaller "lifestyle" businesses, saying that it feels like cheating at business, happiness, and life. He wrote: "Nothing better than a $1-3M ARR ‘lifestyle’ business… Let me tell you what I’m never going to do: serve Fortune 500s (nevermind 100s). The bureaucracy, hoops, and friction of those orgs is the least enjoyable, least rewarding, most avoid-at-all-costs thing in my life."
The Case for Startups
Not everyone agreed that established brands would successfully transition from SEO tools to AI search. Daniel Rodriguez, cofounder of Beewhisper, suggested that the next generation of winners may not be "better Conductors," but rather companies that start from a completely different paradigm based on how AI users interact with information. He commented: "You’re 100% right that the incumbents’ advantages in crawling, data processing, and enterprise relationships are immense… But the new user journey is happening in a dynamic, conversational layer on top of the web. It’s a fundamentally different type of data that requires a new kind of engine."
Venture Capital’s Role in the AI SEO Boom
Mike Mallazzo, Ads + Agentic Commerce @ PayPal, questioned whether there’s a market to support multiple breakout startups and suggested that venture capital interest in AEO and GEO startups may not be rational. He believes that the market is there for modest, capital-efficient companies rather than fund-returning unicorns. He commented: "I admire the hell out of you and SEMRush, Ahrefs, Moz, etc– but y’all are all a different breed imo– this is a space that is built for reasonably capital efficient, profitable, renegade pirate SaaS startups that don’t fit the Sand Hill hyper venture scale mold. Feels like some serious Silicon Valley naivete fueling this funding run…"
New Kinds of Search Behavior and Data
The industry is still figuring out what is necessary to track, what is important for AI visibility. For example, brand mentions are emerging as an important metric, but is it really? Will brand mentions put customers in the ecommerce checkout cart? Michael Bonfils, a 30-year search marketing veteran, raised these questions in a discussion about zero click searches and what to do to better survive it, saying: "This is, you know, we have a funnel, we all know which is the awareness consideration phase and the whole center and then finally the purchase stage. The consideration stage is the critical side of our funnel. We’re not getting the data. How are we going to get the data?"
AI SEO Tool Companies: Where Your Data Will Come From Next
If the future of search is not about search results and the attendant search query volumes but a dynamic dialogue, the kinds of data that matter and the systems that can interpret them will change. Will startups that specialize in tracking and interpreting conversational interactions become the dominant SEO tools? Companies like Conductor have a track record of expertly pivoting in response to industry needs, so how it will all shake out remains to be seen.
Conclusion
The future of AI SEO platforms is uncertain, with established companies and startups vying for dominance. While established companies have strengths in crawling, data processing, and enterprise relationships, startups may be better positioned to create AI-native solutions that more accurately follow how users interact with AI chatbots and search. As the industry continues to evolve, it’s likely that we’ll see a mix of both established companies and startups succeeding in the market. Ultimately, the companies that can adapt to the changing landscape and provide the most value to users will be the ones that thrive in the AI SEO space.