The Machine Customer Era | Zero Click 2025

The Machine Customer Era | Zero Click 2025

Profound | tryprofound.com

Inaugural AI Search, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) conference hosted in Ramp's HQ in NYC.

Transcript

2. Josh Blyskal AI Strategy, Profound Sartaj Rajpal Research, Profound The Machine Customer Era
3. $330 6 7 0 ,
10. The Day We Discovered AIs Are Already Shopping The Proof of Consciousness
11. What’s on your mind today? my back hurts. my office chair does not extend past by shoulders
12. I’m exhausted but can’t sleep My back hurts from working at home I want to get healthier but hate gyms My kid won't stop crying at bedtime
13. 33.8% 1 in 3 convos contained unprompted product recommendations.
14. 41.2% Almost half of convos saw the AI mention specific brand names unprompted
15. 12.3% 1 in 8 included actual prices or price ranges.
16. "The Invisible Commerce Layer" User describes feeling AI diagnoses issue AI prescribes solution AI selects product AI specifies brand Purchase decision made
17. 41% 42% 47% 23%
18. Experiment: Proving Influence
19. Every AI Is a Different Species ChatGPT en.wikipedia.org 9.30% reddit.com 6.06% techradar.com 1.52% Perplexity reddit.com 6.47% youtube.com 2.87% tripadvisor.com 1.09% Claude amazon.com 0.95% reddit.com 0.68% techradar.com 0.46% Gemini youtube.com 0.76% en.wikipedia.org 0.64% nerdwallet.com 0.60%
23. 3:00
24. The Real-Time Web Intelligence That's Deciding Everything The Anatomy of Machine Influence
25. What’s on your mind today? recommend a CRM for a 50-person B2B company
26. Step 1: Query Regularization & Fan-Out
27. Step 2: The SerpAPI Calls
28. Instant Disqualifications Step 3: The Trust Decision - WebGPT in Action Sites with JavaScript-heavy content (We tested: zero citations) Obvious affiliate marketing pages Content farms with thin content Sites that failed to load quickly Cryptic URLs like "/a8d7f-ethical-92j3k"
29. Trust Signals WebGPT Looks For Semantic URLs ("/best-crm-for-startups" gets 11.4% more citations) Meta descriptions that spoil the answer Forums with genuine discussion (Reddit is still the #1 most cited source overall, still 2nd in ChatGPT) Recent publish dates (Last 30 days get 3x weight) Pages with specific data/numbers/comparisons Step 3: The Trust Decision - WebGPT in Action
30. Step 4: What ChatGPT Actually Decides to Read Reddit thread: “Switched from Pipedrive to Hubspot” Forbes: "Best CRM Software 2025" University case study: "CRM Implementation Analysis" HubSpot.com: "Why Choose HubSpot" G2: "Real User Reviews"
31. From Query to Recommendation in Real-Time T+0ms: User asks question T+50ms: Query regularization (creates 5 search variations) T+100ms: API calls (parallel searches executed) T+600ms: 50 URLs returned T+650ms: RAG result analysis T+700ms: Scrape sections from the top 5-7 trusted pages T+1500ms: Read actual content T+2000ms: Synthesize findings T+2500ms: Generate recommendation T+3000ms: User sees answer
32. Engineering Visibility = Winning the Query The Formula URL Architecture Answer-First Content Meta Descriptions and Semantic Chunks The Reddit Reality Freshness Beats Authority
33. Control: Company's $2M content marketing library Result: Never mentioned by ChatGPT T est: One semantic URL page + Meta description with answer + Reddit discussion Result: Became top recommendation in 72 hours
34. 19% ChatGPT Google SERP AI Search Diverges from Traditional SEO
35. AI Cites Pages in Days Monday 9am Published comparison article on respected tech blog 5pm Started getting scraped in ChatGPT searches Tuesday 10am Became a primary source for category queries Wednesday Profound saw an increase in demo requests
36. 0:00
37. “Recommend a CRM for a 50-person B2B company”
38. The Edge Cases That Broke Our Brains It's Not About Products Anymore
39. ChatGPT I'd recommend waiting for the next update, as current reports suggest some battery issues Unless you need the security patches, the OS can wait
40. How do I clean my retainer? ChatGPT You can clean your retainer using gentle, household solutions — try soaking it in a mix of water and white vinegar, or brushing it lightly with baking soda. Everything but cleaning products
41. The Money Trail Following Dollars Through the AI Economy
42. $1,847
43. 10:14:00 AM My back hurts from working at home
44. 10:14:00.50 AM My back hurts from working at home ChatGPT transforms her complaint into 6 search queries: "ergonomic office chair back pain" "best chair lumbar support remote work 2025" "back pain home office solutions Reddit" "Herman Miller vs Steelcase comparison" "standing desk back pain relief 2025" "office ergonomics posture improvement"
45. 10:14:01 AM SerpAPI returns 47 websites
46. 10:14:02 AM ✓ Mayo Clinic ✓ r/buyitforlife ✓ Wirecutter WebGPT scans through and chooses a few
47. 10:14:03 AM ✓ Mayo Clinic ✓ r/buyitforlife ✓ Wirecutter ChatGPT AI reads the 3 trusted sources
48. 10:14:05 AM My back hurts from working at home Response appears
49. 10:17 AM 10:32 AM 11:45 AM 11:46 AM 2:30 PM Timeline continues Sarah googles “Herman Miller Aeron reviews” Visits Herman Miller website Adds Aeron chair to cart ($1,847) Googles “Herman Miller discount codes” Purchase complete
50. The Multiplication Effect
51. 502890 similar queries asked $59552 9 0 in influenced purchases
52. The New Reality: Every Query is a Purchase Funnel Problem recognition Information Search Evaluation Purchase Decision Post Purchase Mention Problem AI Selects Solution Human Googles to Confirm Purchase Never Question 2-4 weeks 2-4 hours The funnel hasn't just compressed. It's become invisible.
53. The Algorithmic Lock-In Day 1: AI recommends Product A to Sarah Day 30: 10,000 "Sarahs" bought Product A Day 31: Product A has 10,000 new positive reviews Day 32: AI weights those reviews, recommends A more strongly Day 90: Product A mentioned in 67% of queries Day 365: Product A owns the category
54. The $285 Million Daily Question Top 200 brands – Capture 23.4% of AI recommendations Top 201-2,000 brands – Capture 22.1% 2001-200,000+ brands – Fight for the remaining half $ $ $ $ $
55. The Proof at Scale From Theory to Millions: The Ramp Experiment
56. Leading fintech – $1.9B in funding Problem: 3.2% AI visibility in Accounts Payable Ranking: 19th place in their category AI mentions: Almost invisible November 2024: The Starting Position
57. Day 1: The Insight Traditional SEO content: 2% citation rate Automation/AI content: 6% citation rate Software comparisons: 30% of citations
58. Instead of 100 blog posts, Ramp created exactly 2 pages: Day 7: The Strategic Pivot
59. The pages started appearing in ChatGPT responses. 47 citations in week two. Day 14: First Signal
60. 7x AI visibility grew from 3.2% to 22.2% #8 19th to 8th place, passing 11 competitors 300+ Citations in 30 days - more than all their previous content combined Day 30: The Results
61. 22.2% AI visibility 3.2% AI visibility The Strategy Decoded Traditional SEO Approach AI-Native Approach
62. Competitor A $50M marketing budget 4.1% AI Visibility Competitor B 10,000 indexed pages 5.7% AI Visibility Competitor C #1 in Google 6.2% AI Visibility Ramp 2 strategic pages 22.2% AI Visibility The 11 Companies Ramp Passed
63. New Game: Create cited content → Influence AI → Capture decisions You
64. The Commerce Revolution From Recommendation to Transaction in 10 Months $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
65. November 2024 September 2025
66. November 2024: The First Domino Perplexity Breaks the Seal What changed: One-click checkout inside AI No redirect to merchants sites AI handles billing and shipping “Snap to Shop” - photo becomes purchase
67. Perplexity Merchant Program
68. April 2025: The Giant Awakens The Paradigm Shift: AI-powered search queries: 700 million weekly active users Shopping integrated into conversation Results are "not ads, not sponsored"—organic AI decisions
69. "[ChatGPT is] trying to understand how people are reviewing [products], what the pros and cons are... If you say you prefer only buying black clothes from a specific retailer, ChatGPT will store that information."
70. September 2025: The Infrastructure Moment The Agentic Commerce Protocol const agent_purchase = { : "I need running shoes", : "Nike React Infinity", : true, : "processed", : "3 seconds" } user_intent agent_decision instant_checkout merchant_payment time_elapsed “url”: “AcmeB2B”, } What This Enables: AI completes purchase without human confirmation Encrypted payment tokens for specific amounts Multi-party commerce (user + AI + merchant) Single line of code integration for Stripe merchants
71. Including: Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx, Vuori" U.S. users can now buy from: ChatGPT 1 million+ sellers (Live today) 1 million+ merchants (Coming weeks)
72. The Hidden Architecture Required fields for AI commerce: enable_search: true enable_checkout: true inventory_quantity: Real-time stock trust_signals: Review aggregation price_effective_date: Dynamic pricing
73. The Hidden Architecture popularity_score: influences AI ranking return_rate: affects AI confidence related_products: shapes AI bundles geo_availability: controls AI regional logic
74. The Velocity of Change November 2024: 
 First AI checkout → Experimental April 2025: 
 ChatGPT shopping → 700M users September 2025: 
 Open protocol → Industry standard
75. 2024:
 "The Influence Era" - earliest AI-influenced purchases 2025 (Now):
 "The Delegation Era" - First AI agents with supervised buying authority 2026:
 "The Autonomous Era" - AI agents managing subscription services, replenishment 2027:
 "The Negotiation Era" - AI-to-AI price negotiations, dynamic pricing responses 2028:
 "The B2B2AI Era" - Entire companies selling to agentic customers 2030:
 "The Machine Economy" - AI agents control 30% of all consumer spending
76. We're not just changing how people shop. We're eliminating shopping as a human activity.
77. The Competitive Reality Check Every major tech company is racing to own AI commerce. The question isn't if this happens. It's who wins. Companies building for this OpenAI: Agentic Commerce Protocol Perplexity: Buy with Pro Google: Gemini + Shopping integration Amazon: Rufus AI assistant Stripe: Payment infrastructure Companies with an opportunity Your competitors? You?
78. Fortune 500 companies have dedicated AI influence teams. They're not publicly talking about it. They're spending millions annually. Each. Your Competitors Are Already Moving The Response
79. Washington Post Head of AI Discovery & SEO Adobe Product Manager - Generative Engine Optimization e.l.f. Beauty Manager, AI Search & SEO
80. The Numbers That Matter $104.3B Annual AI influenced purchase volume today 10mo Time from first AI checkout to industry standard 46% of consumers say they trust AI to provide more honest advice than friends The age of human commerce is ending. The age of machine commerce has begun. And it only took 10 months.
81. URL Architecture Semantic URLs aren't just nice to have. '/best-crm- startups' gets 11.4% more citations than '/page? id=12345'. Your URL is your first impression to AI." Answer-First Content Create the single piece of content that hosts the EXACT answer the user is looking for in a self- contained chunk. The Reddit Reality One genuine Reddit discussion is worth more than your entire blog. Reddit is the #1 source for Perplexity, #2 for GAIO, #2 for ChatGPT. JavaScript = Invisibility If your content requires JavaScript to load, you don't exist. AI crawlers don't wait for your React app to render. Freshness Beats Authority Content from the last 30 days gets exponentially more weight. A fresh Medium post can beat a two- month-old Wikipedia entry.
82. Continue marketing to humans while AI mediates every decision Start marketing to the machines that are making the decisions
83. $3.97m $35.7m Influenced Purchases Time
84. Your next biggest customer is looking for you right now. What is it finding?