How Knowatoa Helps Businesses Win the AI Search Game
Someone joked, ‘What would ChatGPT say about my company?’ We tried it, laughed, and then realised—this actually matters.
Knowatoa started with a joke.
Mike, its co-founder, recalls a light-hearted chat among a group of SaaS founders. “Someone said, ‘I wonder what ChatGPT thinks of my company?’ and we all started testing it out. The results were all over the place,” he explains. “Some companies didn’t show up at all, others were buried under competitors, and a few had wildly inaccurate information.”
What began as a bit of fun quickly became something more.
That night, Mike couldn’t stop thinking about it. By the next day, he had written a basic script on his Mac to scrape ChatGPT responses about his friends’ businesses and competitors, tracking how the results changed over time.
“I’d share a CSV file with the group every week, and they’d give me feedback—what was exciting, what was completely off. It was really raw at that stage, but it got me thinking: maybe this is a real problem to solve.”
After refining the process, Mike and Ryan pitched the idea to a few SEO agencies. They pre-sold several reports—not for the money, but to prove the concept had legs.
From Curiosity to Competitive Edge
Initially, the focus was simple: finding out if AI tools like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini even recognised a business.
But Mike soon realised this wasn’t enough. “It turns out, ‘Do these AIs know about my company?’ is a question people ask, but it’s not the one they care about most. It’s a vitamin, not a painkiller,” he says.
Through conversations with marketers and SEO professionals, Mike discovered the real pain point: “Is an AI recommending my competitor instead of me?” This shift changed everything. Knowatoa began to focus on helping businesses not only appear in AI-driven search results but also outperform their competitors.
“Traditional SEO is all about optimising for Google’s ten blue links,” Mike explains. “But AI search doesn’t work that way. You need a completely different approach.”
Knowatoa provides businesses with actionable insights and a structured maturity model to help them navigate this new landscape:
- Ensure AI bots like GPT can access their site.
- Check that the AI services have accurate information about their business.
- Monitor sentiment, because, as Mike puts it, “AI has opinions. For example, ChatGPT loves Tesla but hates Enron.”
- Close content gaps and find opportunities to outrank competitors.
One of the biggest challenges has been communication. “There’s no agreed terminology for what we do,” Mike explains. “SEO for Google is clear, but for AI search? We’ve seen terms like ‘AIO’ (AI Optimisation) and ‘GEO’ (Generative Engine Optimisation), but nothing has really stuck yet. Even Google keeps changing their terms—Bard became Gemini. It’s a moving target.”
Shaping the Future of AI Search
A pivotal moment for Mike came during a sales call.
“The prospect started pitching me new ways to use Knowatoa, which was both surprising and exciting,” he says. “They saw ChatGPT and similar tools as representatives of their company, answering questions all day long. But were those answers correct? Were they accurate about their products? Did they misrepresent the brand in any way?”
This feedback reinforced what Mike already suspected: Knowatoa wasn’t just about rankings or visibility. It was about ensuring that AI tools accurately and positively represent businesses.
Looking ahead, Mike hopes Knowatoa will play a key role in helping businesses adapt to the shift from traditional SEO to AI-driven strategies.
“It’s a weird time in the industry,” he admits. “AI is moving so fast, and a lot of people feel overwhelmed. If we can help businesses feel like they’re in control—like they can actually win in this new landscape—that’ll be a success in my book.”
For aspiring SaaS founders, Mike has one key piece of advice: talk to the right people. “You hear ‘talk to people’ all the time, but it’s not enough. You need to talk to people who are in the space you’re targeting. I’ve found that attending small, focused conferences has been invaluable.
You get honest, direct feedback, and that kind of insight stays with you—it shapes everything you do going forward.”
