Ignite Startups: How AI Search Is Reshaping Growth Strategies with Jochen Madler | Ep266

Episode notes

What happens when customers stop searching—and start asking? That shift is already underway. Instead of typing keywords into Google, users are turning to ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI systems to get answers, recommendations, and even complete transactions. The result: fewer clicks, fewer visits to websites, and a new layer of decision-making that most companies don’t control. Jochen Madler, co-founder and CEO of SiteFire, is building for that future. After starting in academia with a focus on statistics and reinforcement learning, Jochen left his PhD to tackle a growing problem: brands are losing visibility inside AI systems, and they don’t know why. The Moment Everything Broke A turning point came when Google introduced AI-generated summaries in search results. Some companies saw impressions stay stable—but clicks dropped sharply. Users got their answers directly from Google, without visiting the source. In one case, this shift hit revenue hard enough to trigger a major market reaction. That exposed a simple truth: Traffic is no longer guaranteed, even if demand exists. If AI systems answer the question, your website might never get visited.