When Adidas or Omnicom (NYSE:OMC) show up in a Google search, marketers know how to measure it. When the same names appear in a ChatGPT or Gemini answer, the playbook gets murky.
That uncertainty is exactly what Bluefish is selling into, with a $20 million Series A designed to give companies visibility into what artificial intelligence is saying about them, Fast Company reports.
Bluefish co-founder and CEO Alex Sherman described the shift as inevitable. "There's this pattern that plays out on the internet, where a new sort of technology emerges that changes how consumers interact with information online," Sherman told Fast Company. "Brands and marketers are always initially not quite sure how to place that and how to use it, but as consumer adoption scales, it becomes really clear that this is where the eyeballs are going."
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How Bluefish Maps Brand Presence Inside ChatGPT and Google Gemini
Bluefish runs millions of automated queries into large language models, including OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, to track what those systems tell consumers about global brands. Fast Company says the platform then reports on visibility, sentiment, and whether content created by a company is shaping the AI's answer or if third-party conversations dominate.
"Our technology analyzes millions of AI prompt responses every day to give marketers a really clear picture of how they're being portrayed to consumers by those large language models," Sherman told Fast Company. "Then we enable them to take action and start to actually optimize the way those models are describing their products and their services."
Fast Company says that optimization often means creating web content aimed directly at AI models, such as FAQs tailored to common prompts or resource-heavy pages unlikely to be read by humans but highly influential to AI systems.
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Fortune 500 Clients, Expensive AI Bills, and Custom Audiences
Bluefish has built its business around serving Fortune 500 companies, such as Adidas, Tishman Speyer, and Omnicom. According to Fast Company, the company tailors its pricing and offerings to match the needs of global-scale organizations, where brand visibility inside AI systems can have an immediate financial impact.
The company also launched a product called Custom AI Audiences, which Fast Company says allows brands to view how AI portrays them differently depending on the user segment being simulated. For example, a bank could see how financial advisers, retail investors, and college students each encounter its brand in AI-driven interactions.
Sherman admitted the cost of running so many AI queries is significant. "We have a very expensive bill from the AI providers every month," he told Fast Company.
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The Future of Marketing Budgets Is AI Marketing
Generative engine optimization is emerging as the next phase of digital marketing, New York magazine reported. The practice builds on traditional SEO but is aimed at shaping how AI systems like ChatGPT or Gemini answer questions about brands.
Other companies in the field are experimenting with similar techniques, including social media engagement, online forum visibility, and press coverage, but Fast Company says Bluefish has zeroed in on tailoring content directly for AI training and query responses.
Sherman believes the category will quickly claim marketing budget share. "It is sort of the channel that's eating all of the other channels," he told Fast Company. "Ultimately, we basically see most online marketing as turning into AI marketing over the next few years."
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