The Good Tech Companies - From Launch to Exit in 10 Months: Inside Neri Bluman's Bet on Answer Engine Optimization

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/from-launch-to-exit-in-10-months-inside-neri-blumans-bet-on-answer-engine-optimization. Neri Bluman is the co-founder of XFunnel, a forward-thinking platform built to demystify AI search engines. Check more stories related to machine-learning at: https://hackernoon.com/c/machine-learning. You can also check exclusive content about #ai, #answer-engine-optimization, #llm-seo, #generative-engine-optimization, #seo, #zero-click-search, #neri-bluman, #good-company, and more. This story was written by: @stevebeyatte. Learn more about this writer by checking @stevebeyatte's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. Neri Bluman and co-founder Beeri Amiel recognized this inflection point early and launched XFunnel to pioneer Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—maintaining brand visibility in AI-driven discovery. Ten months later, HubSpot acquired the company, validating both the urgency of the problem and their solution.

This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. From launch to exit in 10 months, inside Neri Blumen's bet on answer engine optimization, by Steve Byad. While most marketers were still focused on traditional CO, a small team was building for a future where search results wouldn't matter at all. The internet is undergoing a fundamental shift. Traditional search traffic is being replaced by AI generated answers. Users ask Chad GPT, perplexity, Gemini,

are clawed for recommendations and receive synthesized responses without ever clicking through to a website. For brands built on search visibility, it's an existential challenge. Neri Blumen and co-founder Biri Amiel recognized this inflection point early and launched X funnel to pioneer answer engine optimization, AEO, maintaining brand visibility in AI-driven discovery. Ten months later, HubSpot acquired the company, validating both the urgency of the problem and their solution. For Blumen, who previously co-founded AVO and scaled it to 1,000 employees and 350 million Australian dollars valuation,

the timeline reflects conviction about inevitable shifts and the ability to execute before consensus forms. The zero-click reality, we're watching the buying journey compress in real time, Blumen explains. People still research, but they do it through synthesized answers that feel final, so brands have to show up earlier, and they have to show up correctly. As AI-powered answer engines gain adoption, users increasingly receive what they perceive as complete answers without navigating to websites. The zero-click reality creates a crisis for brands that spent decades optimizing for search rankings.

CO was built to optimize for clicks. AEO is built to optimize for influence, Blumen Notes. LLMs form an opinion about your brand by synthesizing signals from thousands of sources, so the new priority is understanding which inputs actually shape that narrative and learning how to strengthen the ones that matter most. Building the methodology, X-Funnel partnered directly with top-tier marketing organizations ASCO researchers, testing what actually changes outcomes in AI-driven discovery and translating learnings into actionable practices. The platform-tracked performance across Chad GPT, perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and other emerging answer engines. Wigs, Monday,

Com, Last Pass, Docebo, Getty Images, Fiverr, Betterment, and Cato networks deployed XFunnels methodology to improve how they appeared in I-generated recommendations. We helped brands measure and improve how they show up in I-generated answers, tracking brand visibility, ranking, share of voice and citation frequency. And we routinely saw 20 to 40% plus improvements as teams iterated, Blumen says. A different game. What makes AEO distinct? AI systems don't rank. They synthesize Probabilistic discovery changes the strategy, Blumen explains. Unlike Google's mostly deterministic ranking model, LLM answers are probabilistic,

so even the same question can produce different answers across runs, users, and contexts. Thatterns AEO into a numbers game. You win by showing up across a large volume of relevant questions and driving consensus across sources. The goal becomes narrative consistency, making sure that across all models, your brand is reflected the same way. Teams must optimize for influence rather than ranking.

The core question, which sources shape how I describes us? Brands need to identify the pages, content, communities, and narratives that models rely on, and deliberately strengthen those influence points. Experimentation becomes the playbook, Blumen adds, There isn't a stable rulebook yet. The winning teams will run a tight loop of monitoring right pointing arrow hypotheses, right pointing arrow content updates, right pointing arrow measurement, iterating continuously. The HubSpot integration, the HubSpot acquisition will integrate XFunnels research into HubSpotty's marketing suite, bringing AEO tools to its broad customer base.

The internet didn't stand still, but for 20 years, the way most people navigated it basically did, you searched, you clicked, you visited pages, Blumen reflects. AI changes the interface completely. When the primary experience becomes an answer rather than a list of links, it opens a much bigger design space for creativity. product thinking, and experimentation. It's genuinely an exciting time to be in marketing, what's next. As the discipline matures, Blumen sees it standardizing around brand visibility and influence rate. Brand visibility measures how often a brand appears across AI-generated answers for category-defining questions. Influence rate measures show much a brand shapes the

AI narrative, the sources and claims models Relian, and how much of that influence can be deliberately steered. As CEO, my role has been to help shape AEO from an emerging idea into an operating discipline, Blumen Notes. We partnered directly with top tire marketing teams as co-researchers, learning in the field, stress testing would actually change as outcomes, and translating those learnings into clear practice steams can run. For marketing teams still focused primarily on traditional CO, the transition represents both challenge and opportunity. The teams that adapt quickly will establish advantages that compound over time. The future Blumen and Amiel built for arrived faster than most expected.

HubSpot's acquisition suggests the market now agrees. Answer engine optimization isn't emerging. It's essential. This article was published under Hackernoon's business blogging program. Thank you for listening to this Hackernoon story, read by artificial intelligence. Visit hackernoon.com to read, write, learn and publish.