Sitecore has acquired Scrunch, an AI customer experience platform that helps brands monitor and improve how they seem in AI-generated search results. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Scrunch’s tools shall be added to Sitecore’s digital experience platform, utilized by corporations to administer digital content and customer experiences. Sitecore said the acquisition will help customers understand how their brands are represented in answers generated by large language model-driven search engines, showing where brand messages are missing or misrepresented, and provides recommendations on content and source improvements.
AI search and brand visibility
Gartner has previously forecast that traditional search engine volume would fall by 25% by 2026 as search corporations switch in AI chatbots and virtual agents. Pew Research Centre found that Google users who encountered an AI summary clicked a standard search result in 8% of visits, compared with 15% of visits when no AI summary appeared.
A Semrush study reported by Business Insider found that only 22% of surveyed US marketers had a totally integrated AI search and search engine marketing strategy, while 37% said competitors were mentioned more often in AI results.
Sitecore said many enterprises have content that’s hard for AI systems to access, and the Scrunch technology offers an Agent Experience Platform, or AXP that formats content so AI agents and huge language models can process it.
Sitecore Chief Executive Officer Eric Stine said: “”With Scrunch, we let our customers understand how they’re represented in AI-generated answers and robotically act on those insights, maximising how they reach and serve their customers,” Stine said.
Scrunch’s tools cover several areas linked to AI search visibility. The platform tracks buyer queries, brand representation, competitive positioning, source citations, and content gaps in AI systems. Sitecore said these abilities differ from standalone answer engine optimisation tools by connecting insights on to execution workflows. Scrunch’s recommendations shall be integrated into SitecoreAI Content Management, Content Marketing, and Digital Asset Management products.
Customer examples
The corporations cited several customer case studies, including Akamai and Runpod. In one evaluation, Akamai compared AXP-enabled web pages with comparable non-AXP web pages in tracked AI search prompts and models. AXP-enabled pages recorded a 364% increase in brand presence for non-branded prompts and a 218% increase in citations in AI-generated results.
Runpod reported a 400% increase in paying customers linked to its AI search optimisation work.
(Photo by BoliviaInteligente)
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