AI Search Marketing: Gushwork’s Revolutionary Bet on ChatGPT and Gemini Leads Nets $9M and Early Traction

In a bold move that capitalizes on the seismic shift in how customers find businesses, the startup Gushwork is pioneering AI search marketing. The company helps companies capture valuable leads from platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. This innovative strategy has now attracted significant investor confidence, evidenced by a $9 million seed funding round announced this week. The financing signals a growing belief that AI-driven discovery is creating a new frontier for customer acquisition, fundamentally challenging traditional search engine marketing paradigms.

Gushwork’s AI Search Marketing Strategy and Funding Milestone

Gushwork, founded in 2023, has secured $9 million in a seed round led by Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and Lightspeed. Other participants included B Capital, Seaborne Capital, Beenext, Sparrow Capital, and 2.2 Capital. Consequently, this investment values the startup at $33 million post-money. This marks a substantial increase from its $7.5 million valuation following a $2.1 million pre-seed round in July 2023. The latest funding brings Gushwork’s total capital raised to $11 million. This financial endorsement arrives as AI companies like OpenAI and Perplexity actively chip away at the dominance of traditional web search. In response, incumbents like Google are rapidly integrating AI-generated overviews and conversational features. Gushwork’s core thesis is that this shift creates a massive opportunity for businesses to surface in these new AI-driven discovery channels.

The startup’s platform employs a network of specialized AI agents to automate key marketing functions. These agents perform several critical tasks:

• Generate and update search-optimized content tailored for both traditional and AI search engines.
• Build quality backlinks through a partner network of 200-300 websites, typically securing 10-20 links per client.
• Track inbound leads via an integrated content management system, attributing success to specific channels.

Co-founder Nayrhit Bhattacharya explained the company’s evolution. Initially, Gushwork focused on helping small and medium businesses outsource workflows using a blend of AI and human expertise. However, overwhelming customer demand for improved online visibility prompted a strategic pivot toward search-led marketing. “The pull around search from customers became increasingly hard to ignore,” Bhattacharya stated.

The Rising Tide of AI-Driven Discovery and Lead Generation

The landscape of online discovery is undergoing a profound transformation. Generative AI chatbots and AI web browsers are increasingly becoming the first port of call for B2B buyers researching vendors and products. For instance, OpenAI reported in July 2025 that ChatGPT processes approximately 2.5 billion prompts daily globally, with about 330 million originating from U.S. users. This behavioral shift is creating a new channel for high-intent leads. Gushwork’s internal data provides compelling early evidence. Across its customer base, roughly 20% of website traffic now comes from AI-driven search and chat platforms. More importantly, these sources account for about 40% of all inbound leads, indicating significantly higher user intent and conversion potential.

Bhattacharya shared a concrete example of this impact. One professional services client using Gushwork’s platform has closed contracts worth between $200,000 and $350,000 directly attributed to leads from AI discovery channels. He noted that many users are experiencing meaningful pipeline growth as AI-driven discovery gains mainstream traction. The startup’s current customer base is concentrated among high-ticket B2B service providers, industrial distributors, and contract manufacturers, primarily located in the United States.

Business Model and Market Traction

Gushwork operates on a subscription model, with plans starting at $800 per month. The average subscription runs between $800 and $900 monthly, translating to an annual contract value of roughly $9,000 to $10,000. The company has already signed over 300 paying customers, with about 95% based in the U.S. Since rolling out its AI search-focused product three months ago, Gushwork is operating at approximately $1.5 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR). The startup is targeting $3 million to $3.5 million ARR within the next quarter, fueled by month-over-month growth rates of 50% to 80%. Furthermore, Gushwork has a waitlist of more than 800 businesses awaiting onboarding, indicating strong market demand.

Strategic Implications and Future Roadmap

The success of Gushwork’s AI search marketing approach highlights a broader industry trend. Marketing teams must now optimize for conversational AI interfaces and AI-generated answer engines, not just traditional keyword-based search results. This requires a different technical and content strategy. Gushwork’s plan is to use the new capital to expand its engineering team, improve the accuracy of its AI models, and scale its go-to-market efforts. The company is headquartered in Delaware and maintains an operational office in Bengaluru, India, with a team of about 70 employees and several contractors. The geographic distribution allows it to leverage technical talent while focusing its sales efforts on the primary U.S. market.

The shift toward AI-driven discovery, while still in early stages, is gaining undeniable momentum. As Bhattacharya observed, this trend is beginning to reshape how forward-thinking businesses approach their entire online visibility strategy. The higher conversion rates from AI platforms suggest users are engaging in more targeted, solution-oriented queries. Therefore, appearing in these AI-generated answers is becoming as crucial as ranking on the first page of Google. This evolution presents both a challenge for legacy SEO practices and a substantial opportunity for agile startups like Gushwork that build tools specifically for this new environment.

Conclusion

Gushwork’s $9 million funding round and early traction validate a significant market hypothesis: AI search marketing is emerging as a critical channel for business lead generation. By helping companies surface effectively on platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini, Gushwork addresses a pressing need created by the rapid adoption of AI for discovery. The company’s data, showing that 40% of inbound leads originate from AI platforms, provides a compelling case for this new paradigm. As AI continues to reshape the digital landscape, Gushwork’s focused strategy on AI search marketing positions it at the forefront of a potentially transformative shift in how businesses connect with customers online.

FAQs

Q1: What is AI search marketing?
AI search marketing is the practice of optimizing a business’s online presence to appear in the answers generated by AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. It involves creating content and building authority that these AI systems recognize and cite when users ask relevant questions.

Q2: How does Gushwork’s platform work?
Gushwork uses a network of AI agents to automate key marketing tasks. These agents generate and optimize content for AI search, build backlinks through a partner network, and track leads through an integrated system, all designed to improve a business’s visibility in AI-driven discovery channels.

Q3: Why are leads from AI platforms considered higher intent?
Data from Gushwork shows that while AI platforms drive 20% of traffic, they generate 40% of leads. This discrepancy suggests users on these platforms are asking specific, solution-oriented questions, making them further along in the buying journey compared to users performing broad traditional searches.

Q4: Who are Gushwork’s typical customers?
The startup primarily serves high-ticket B2B service providers, industrial distributors, and contract manufacturers, with about 95% of its current 300+ paying customers based in the United States.

Q5: What will Gushwork do with its new $9 million in funding?
The capital will be used to expand the engineering team, improve the accuracy and capabilities of its AI models, and scale its sales and marketing efforts to onboard the 800+ businesses currently on its waitlist.