Small Brands Can Be Discovered Too in the Age of AI Search [Startup Pick]

As generative AI advances, an era has arrived in which AI searches for information on behalf of people. Instead of typing keywords into a portal search box and checking search results one by one, users now ask generative AI services such as ChatGPT and Gemini and receive answers immediately. AI generates responses by synthesizing information from multiple sources. For brands, it is becoming increasingly important not only to appear at the top of search results but also to be included in AI-generated answers.

FlipB is a startup operating in the field of “generative AI search optimization,” or GEO, in response to this shift. Unlike conventional search engine optimization, or SEO, which targets higher placement in search results viewed by people, GEO analyzes what information AI uses as the basis for its answers and which brands it includes as options. IT Chosun spoke with Sohn Eun-kyung, CEO of FlipB, about why brands should pay attention to GEO in the age of AI search.

Sohn Eun-kyung, CEO of FlipB, speaks during an interview with IT Chosun. / IT Chosun

Even Good Brands Disappear If They Are Not Discovered

Sohn became interested in GEO because she believed the age of AI search could change how brands are discovered. In the past, consumers chose brands by directly comparing search results, advertisements and influencer content. This was the backdrop for the growth of the advertising market centered on search and influencers. Brands had to be visible. Now, to promote a brand, it must be visible to AI. A brand needs an information structure that AI can understand so that AI can mention the brand when it searches on behalf of users.

Sohn was able to found FlipB because of her past experience running a cosmetics brand. While building a cosmetics brand targeting women in their 40s and older and promoting its products, she felt that advertising and marketing costs could exceed the cost of product development. She concluded that even a good product could struggle to sell, let alone build loyal customers, if consumers did not know about it.

Sohn believes the generative AI era has created an opportunity for small merchants and small and midsized brands. If various types of brand information are organized in a form that AI can understand and are reflected in AI-generated answers, brands can reach consumers without spending massive sums on advertising and marketing. This became the basis for FlipB’s development of BrandVis, a generative AI search optimization platform.

“No matter how good something is, it is difficult for its value to be recognized if it is not discovered,” Sohn said. “If a brand properly understands the structure of AI-generated answers, even a small brand can make itself known without spending heavily on advertising.”

Suggesting What to Fix Based on AI Answers

BrandVis is a platform that measures how a brand appears in generative AI answers. It analyzes how often a brand is mentioned in AI-generated answers, what content is cited, whether the tone of the answer is favorable, and in which topics the brand is weaker than competing brands. Sohn explained that because AI answers can differ each time even when the same question is asked, data must be accumulated over a certain period to evaluate brand visibility. Brand visibility is an indicator showing how often and in what context a specific brand is mentioned in AI answers.

This role has traditionally been handled mainly by advertising agencies in the existing advertising market. Advertisers often entrusted agencies with performance analysis and improvement proposals after running ads. In that process, capabilities related to what experiments were conducted and why performance changed tended to accumulate more at agencies than within advertisers themselves.

Sohn believes that if GEO is also entrusted only to external agencies in the same way, brands will find it difficult to understand why they are not mentioned in AI answers. That is because brands cannot solve the problem if they rely on outsourcing without directly understanding GEO. FlipB believes GEO performance should be accumulated inside brands as data and as a basis for decision-making.

To solve this problem, BrandVis uses the “brand knowledge graph” as a core concept. A brand knowledge graph is reference data that connects a company, products, founder, brand philosophy and brand content so that AI can refer to them. Reference data is needed to determine what is wrong when AI generates an incorrect answer and to identify how it should be corrected. Official materials such as a brand’s official website serve as this reference data.

FlipB plans to develop BrandVis as software-as-a-service, or SaaS, that goes beyond a simple performance measurement tool. The company plans to advance BrandVis by centering on functions that measure brand mentions, cited content and answer tone in AI-generated responses, while automatically suggesting directions for improvement.

“So That Valuable Things Can Be Discovered as Valuable”

Sohn expects BrandVis to provide meaningful help to small and midsized brands and small merchants once suggestions for improvement are automated. Large brands and major corporations already have a substantial amount of data and content accumulated online. Smaller brands, by contrast, may have little information for AI to reference even if they have competitiveness that differentiates them from large brands. FlipB aims to help such small brands be discovered in AI answers.

Sohn cited the U.S. menstrual products brand Viv as an example. Viv drew attention after a study released in August 2024 found traces of toxic heavy metals in more than 10 major tampon products, leading to more than 3,000 people joining a waitlist to buy its $9 product. Viv founder Katie Diasti told the New York Post that this interest resulted from Viv being consistently recommended as the top product to users searching for safe tampons through AI search. Sohn analyzed that Diasti’s steady accumulation of blog posts explaining the safety and ingredients of her products was reflected in generative AI answers and led to these results.

“I hope BrandVis becomes a platform that helps small and midsized brands and small merchants be discovered well by AI,” Sohn said. “FlipB’s goal is to ensure that valuable things are discovered as valuable.”