What happened
Peec AI, a European startup founded in early 2025, secured $21 million in funding to scale its AI search platform. This platform enables marketing teams to analyse brand performance, track mentions, and benchmark against competitors across AI search engines, including ChatGPT and Perplexity. It facilitates Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) by identifying impactful information sources, thereby helping to drive traffic and sales from these new search platforms and master optimisation for LLM-based answer engines.
Why it matters
The proliferation of AI search engines, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, introduces a significant visibility gap for brands, reducing traditional controls over how product information is discovered and presented. This shift increases exposure to less explicit ranking mechanisms and brand mentions within generative AI outputs, necessitating higher due diligence requirements for marketing teams to monitor and influence their digital presence. This new landscape creates an oversight burden for marketing and potentially compliance roles, as established search engine optimisation strategies become less effective.
