Peec AI Raises $21M as Brands Shift Focus from Google to ChatGPT-Driven Search

The winds of digital search are shifting. As more consumers trade Google queries for ChatGPT conversations, a new chapter in product discovery is being written, and Berlin’s Peec AI is penning its own bold entry.

Peec AI’s Meteoric Rise

Just ten months after launch, Peec AI has attracted 1,300 companies, pushing its annual recurring revenue past $4 million and propelling a sizzling $21 million Series A round led by Singular. This comes a mere four months after its seed funding, marking a valuation now soaring above the $100 million mark, though the founders remain mum on the exact number.

Rethinking Brand Visibility in the AI Era

Traditional SEO is being challenged by what Peec AI calls Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Instead of focusing on keywords, brands now want to appear in the responses delivered by AI assistants, whether answering which CRM is best for a startup or which designer shoes to wear next season. Peec AI empowers marketing teams to track visibility, sentiment, and the sources that inform AI-generated answers, demystifying how and why brands surface in today’s fast-evolving search results.

Actionable Insights, Not Just Analytics

Peec AI’s dashboard brings substance to the strategy. Customers can trace up to 25 prompts for €75 per month ($87), with higher tiers and enterprise solutions for bigger ambitions. Beyond the numbers, the dashboard suggests concrete steps like joining Reddit threads or engaging specific forums to elevate a brand’s AI visibility. Notably, obscure publications that mirror the phrasing of user queries often wield as much influence as major media outlets, fueling actionable content strategies for Peec’s clients.

Tech titans Chanel, Axel Springer, ElevenLabs, and TUI count themselves among Peec AI’s early adopters. The startup is onboarding around 300 new customers each month, planning to double its staff by hiring 40 more in Berlin, and previewing a coming sales hub in New York to capture the rapidly growing U.S. market. Outdoor ads splashed across Berlin signal Peec’s ambitions as competition heats up, with rivals like Profound (New York) and OtterlyAI (Austria) entering the GEO fray.

Data at Scale

Peec AI doesn’t just scrape public search results. Its proprietary data pipeline processes raw, anonymized queries from AI assistants, filtering out noise to understand real user intent about brands and products. This infrastructure, marrying actionable insights with deep data, is poised to offer a decisive edge as search continues to shift toward conversational AI.

A New Battleground for Brand Discovery

If the first era of web search was about links and keywords, the next is all about AI-powered prompts and nuanced conversations. Peec AI’s rapid growth and headline-grabbing investment show that brands are racing to adapt, ensuring they remain visible wherever and however tomorrow’s consumers are searching. As the line between search engine and AI assistant blurs, companies like Peec AI are set to define the benchmarks for brand discovery in the conversational age.