What happens when Google stops sending traffic… and AI starts deciding who gets discovered?

Jochen Madler is betting that most companies are not ready for that shift.

He’s the co-founder and CEO of SiteFire, a YC W26 startup building marketing infrastructure for the agentic web. After a background in statistics and reinforcement learning, he left his PhD to build a company helping brands show up inside AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini—where discovery is already moving.

And the shift is not theoretical. Some companies are already seeing AI traffic grow fast, while others are losing distribution without knowing why.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

00:01 Introduction & SiteFire Overview

00:28 Jochen’s Background in Statistics & Energy Systems

01:18 Founding SiteFire & Early YC Journey

02:14 Moving to San Francisco & Ecosystem Exposure

02:50 YC Experience & Key Takeaways

04:00 Advice for Founders Applying to YC

05:25 From Reinforcement Learning to AI Marketing

06:20 Identifying the AI Search Opportunity

07:35 Google AI Overviews & Traffic Disruption

08:30 Rise of AI as the New Interface

09:17 Why AI Search Isn’t SEO 2.0

10:53 Rational Search vs Human Behavior

12:29 Marketing as a Math Problem

14:01 AI Search vs Traditional Channels

15:26 Websites Becoming Agent-Focused

16:33 Human Traffic vs Agent Traffic Trends

17:46 Adoption Gap & Real-World Usage

19:14 Long-Term Evolution of Search & AI

21:01 GEO vs AEO Debate

21:43 Agent Experience as the New Frontier

22:02 What Winning in AI Search Means

23:12 Distribution Risk if Google Disappears

24:10 OpenAI’s Role in Search Distribution

24:41 GEO vs SEO Debate Revisited

25:11 Markdown, Content Structure & AI Readability

25:58 SiteFire Product: From Monitoring to Execution

28:47 How AI Models Rank & Retrieve Content

31:00 Early Product Traction & Breakthrough Results

32:12 Content Strategy: Domain vs Platforms

34:00 Product vs Services Approach

34:58 Hardest Technical Challenges

36:31 Misconceptions About AI Marketing

38:25 Content Commoditization & Future of SEO

39:17 Competition & Incumbent Risk

42:27 Future of AI Agents Replacing Search

43:27 AI Agents Executing Transactions

44:56 Agent Reviews & API Ecosystems

45:47 Where Value Accrues in AI Stack

48:15 Vision for SiteFire & Agent Funnels

51:10 Rapid Fire: Startup Lessons & Beliefs

Pull Quotes

“Websites will increasingly be visited by agents, not humans.”

“If your API is the one the agent finds and uses, there’s no reason to switch.”

Jochen started by modeling energy systems. Now he’s modeling something bigger: how attention flows when machines—not people—control discovery.

Because in a world where agents decide what gets seen, clicked, and bought…marketing doesn’t disappear. It just moves one layer deeper.

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Ga6v0YUsHotLhjap67uu5

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Follow Jochen Madler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochen-madler/

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