Roughly one in 10 online searches globally now runs through a standalone AI tool such as ChatGPT or Claude rather than a traditional search engine like Google or Bing, according to Similarweb data.

The figure sits at the center of a new marketing problem. Brands that spent a decade optimizing for Google's first page of blue links now confront a competitor they did not have three years ago: the AI assistant that answers the query directly.

Google is reshaping the same surface area at the same time. The company increasingly produces AI-generated replies above the familiar list of blue links. Even on Google, the answer is moving above the click.

A burgeoning cottage industry of tech startups promises to have the solution. They sell services designed to make a brand more likely to show up in AI-generated answers, a discipline that borrows the vocabulary of search engine optimization and applies it to large language models.

ADWEEK profiled seven of the hottest companies in the space last summer, ranking them by fundraising, clientele, and product. The current list expands that count to 11 well-funded entrants.

How big is the AI-search shift?

One in 10 global queries. That is the headline number from Similarweb, and it captures only direct visits to AI assistants. It does not count the queries that start on Google and end inside an AI-generated reply.

The combined footprint is larger than the headline suggests. Google is itself transforming its search product with AI, layering generated answers above the blue links marketers spent a generation learning to rank inside.

What are marketers buying?

The 11 startups sort into three shapes. Some sell software that scores a brand's visibility inside AI tools. Others offer agency services that produce content built to be quoted by language models. A third group measures how often a brand appears in results for specific prompts.

Sorting criteria remain the same ones ADWEEK applied last summer: dollars raised, the depth of the customer roster, and the shape of the product.

What changes for the marketing stack?

The first casualty is the budget line. Marketing teams that consolidated spend into Google Ads and SEO tooling now face a parallel line for AI-search visibility. The category is small today. It does not yet appear on most agency rate cards.

The second casualty is measurement. Most marketers cannot yet say what share of qualified pipeline arrives through ChatGPT, Claude, or a Google AI reply. The tools needed to build that attribution model are themselves among the 11 names on the list.

What happens next?

Expect the field to narrow. The 11 entrants compete for a narrow buyer: the head of marketing with budget authority and a mandate to show up in AI answers. The cohort will compress through acquisition or attrition as the buyer converges on a smaller roster of platforms.

Expect Google to keep reshaping the surface. Every change to Google's AI-generated replies changes what third-party tools can measure and what they can move. The startups best positioned to ride that wave are those whose products track the very answers Google itself is now putting above the links.