Bear: The Startup Helping Companies Show Up on AI Search Engines

The rise of AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google’s AI Overviews has fundamentally shifted how people discover information online. Traditional blue links and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies are no longer enough to guarantee visibility. Instead, companies now face a new challenge: ensuring that their products and services are recommended directly by AI agents in conversational responses.

For many marketers, the difficulty lies in two areas. First, there has been no reliable way to track how often their brand appears in AI-generated answers compared to competitors. Second, even if they identify the problem, they struggle to understand what drives AI agents to recommend certain brands over others. Without visibility into these dynamics, companies risk being overlooked by customers who are increasingly turning to AI tools for decision-making.

Bear was created to solve this. By offering analytics, competitive intelligence, and actionable strategies, the startup provides businesses with a way to influence their visibility in AI-powered search results.

How does Bear’s platform work?

At its core, Bear operates as an intelligence and optimization platform for AI search engines. Its technology monitors when and how a company appears in AI-driven answers, tracks competitor visibility, and pinpoints the sources that feed into those AI responses.

The process involves gathering detailed data on:

• Brand appearance frequency: How often a company is mentioned or recommended by AI tools.
• Competitor benchmarking: When and why rival companies are cited more often.
• Source mapping: Which websites, blogs, or content pieces are most influential in shaping AI-generated answers.
• Prompt insights: The exact user queries that trigger these recommendations.

Once this data is captured, Bear enables companies to take action. For example, if Ramp consistently outperforms Brex because it has a blog post titled “Best Business Credit Cards 2025” that AI tools often cite, Bear’s platform identifies this and makes it easy for Brex to replicate or optimize similar content.

In addition, Bear helps companies connect with the authors and sources AI agents prefer. If CNET is frequently cited in answers about “best laptops 2025”, Bear can identify the writer of that article and facilitate outreach, enabling brands to form partnerships or increase the likelihood of being mentioned in future content.

Why does visibility on AI search matter now more than ever?

Search behavior is undergoing a historic transformation. Approximately 10% of desktop searches in the United States now happen on AI-powered platforms—and this percentage is only expected to grow. Customers no longer type queries into search bars and sift through dozens of links. Instead, they ask conversational questions such as “What’s the best project management tool?” or “Which AI CRM should I use?” and trust the AI-generated answer.

The implications are clear: if a brand isn’t recommended directly by AI, it risks becoming invisible, even if it still ranks highly on Google. Blue links represent an older paradigm, while the future is undeniably conversational. Bear positions itself as the bridge between today’s outdated SEO practices and tomorrow’s AI-first search landscape.

Who are the founders behind Bear?

Bear was founded in 2025 by Janak Sunil and Siddhant (Sid) Paliwal, two entrepreneurs with impressive backgrounds in both technology and business.

• Janak Sunil (Co-Founder & CEO)
  Before starting Bear, Janak worked at Coinbase, where he gained firsthand experience in building technology at scale within the crypto industry. He also founded UCLA’s largest apartment listing platform, which was acquired in 2024. His mix of technical and entrepreneurial expertise positions him to lead Bear’s strategy and growth.
• Siddhant Paliwal (Co-Founder & CTO)
  Sid brings a strong engineering background to the team. He was an early engineer at Third Chair (YC X25) and previously worked at Intel. Remarkably, he started his entrepreneurial journey at just 15 years old, when he founded a parking app that gained enough recognition to earn him an invitation to the United Nations. At Bear, Sid focuses on the technical architecture and data-driven foundation of the product.

Together, their complementary experiences—Janak in scaling businesses and Sid in building cutting-edge technology—give Bear a balanced leadership team capable of tackling the new frontier of AI search.

What makes Bear’s solution unique compared to traditional SEO tools?

Traditional SEO platforms focus on optimizing web pages for search engine crawlers, relying heavily on keyword rankings, backlinks, and content structure. While this approach remains valuable for Google’s blue links, it does not translate effectively to AI-driven search environments. AI agents do not simply crawl websites; they synthesize answers from diverse sources, weigh credibility differently, and adapt dynamically based on conversational prompts.

Bear recognizes this paradigm shift and builds specifically for AI ecosystems. Unlike SEO tools, Bear provides:

• AI-centric analytics: Real-time tracking of how often a company appears in AI-generated results across platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
• Content cloning insights: Identifying competitor content that performs well in AI results and providing actionable guidance for replication or improvement.
• Source outreach automation: Automatically finding and connecting with influential authors or websites that AI agents rely on.
• Competitive visibility dashboards: Offering clarity on why competitors outperform and how to close the gap.

This focus on AI visibility, rather than traditional web rankings, sets Bear apart and gives companies a forward-looking strategy.

What traction has Bear gained so far?

Since its launch, Bear has quickly attracted a growing list of customers. More than 60 companies already use the platform, including notable names like Browserbase, Wispr Flow, and Cal.com. Many of these are fellow Y Combinator companies, reflecting Bear’s strong integration into the startup ecosystem.

The traction demonstrates not only market demand but also validation of Bear’s approach. Marketers and founders alike recognize that being invisible on AI search engines can have costly consequences, and Bear offers a proactive solution at precisely the right time.

How does Bear envision the future of search and marketing?

Bear’s founders believe that the future of search is conversational and AI-first. As blue links continue to lose relevance, companies will need to shift their marketing strategies toward influencing AI-generated answers. Just as SEO became a core discipline in the 2000s, AI visibility optimization is poised to become the next essential skillset for modern marketers.

Bear aims to lead this new category by becoming the go-to platform for AI search intelligence and optimization. By providing tools that not only measure visibility but also improve it, the company empowers businesses to thrive in an environment where AI recommendations drive consumer decisions.

The vision extends beyond tracking mentions—it’s about reshaping how brands connect with customers in an AI-powered world.

Why is the timing ideal for Bear’s launch?

Timing is critical in the startup world, and Bear has positioned itself at the perfect intersection of technological change and market need. In 2025, AI-powered search has shifted from novelty to mainstream adoption. Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have integrated conversational search into their platforms, while consumer trust in AI-generated answers has grown significantly.

Marketers are scrambling to understand how to adapt. Bear steps in not just with theory but with practical, data-driven solutions that companies can implement today. With adoption already accelerating and competitors still largely focused on traditional SEO, Bear is among the first movers defining this new space.

What is Bear’s long-term mission?

At its heart, Bear’s mission is simple: to ensure that every company has a fair chance to be visible in the age of AI search. The team believes that access to AI-driven visibility tools should not be limited to large corporations with extensive resources. Instead, Bear’s platform is designed to democratize AI search optimization, empowering startups and enterprises alike.

Over the long term, Bear aspires to become the standard platform for AI Search Engine Optimization (AI-SEO), much like how companies like SEMrush and Ahrefs became household names for traditional SEO. With strong early traction, visionary founders, and a market that is only growing, Bear is well on its way to achieving that goal.

Conclusion

Bear is more than just another analytics platform—it’s a pioneering force shaping the future of digital visibility. By addressing the emerging challenge of AI search, providing actionable insights, and equipping companies to influence AI-generated recommendations, Bear positions itself as a critical player in the next era of online discovery.

As AI continues to redefine how customers ask questions and receive answers, startups like Bear ensure that brands can keep up, adapt, and thrive. For businesses seeking to show up where it matters most—in the conversational answers of AI agents—Bear offers the tools and vision to make it happen.