Is AI search a risk to your next investment?
We help investors assess the impact of AI search on SEO-reliant assets. Unlock new value & create a compelling equity story through generative visibility.
01
Expose hidden digital risks
AI search is changing how buyers discover brands. We help investors assess whether portfolio companies are vulnerable to shifting search behaviour.
02
Unlock new value creation opportunities
Go beyond traditional marketing playbooks to drive new growth opportunities in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.
03
Strengthen the equity story
Validate growth assumptions and uncover new upside through specialist audits and AI-native growth strategies to build a compelling equity story.
What changing search behaviour means for investors
Buyers are now turning to AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Claude to research and evaluate products and services. These platforms summarise answers, cite fewer sources, and introduce entirely new dynamics for visibility.
That shift has major implications for SEO reliant businesses, and how investors need to think about diligence and value creation.
This introduces a new layer of investment risk: the erosion of digital visibility in channels that may have underpinned the equity story. SEO strength doesn’t always translate into AI search strength.
We can help you assess that risk, fast – and identify whether there’s upside to capture in this new search environment as buyers move from Google to AI tools to guide their purchase journeys.
No equity story is complete without considering how a business shows up in AI search.
If a company’s growth or exit narrative is built around efficient customer acquisition, defensible organic channels, or strong digital visibility, then AI search exposure must be assessed and optimised.
"By 2028, brands’ organic search traffic will decrease by 50% or more as users embrace generative AI-powered search."
FROM KEYWORD
Early stage B2B software research and discovery used to begin with a simple keyword search.
TO CONTEXT
Search is now deeply contextual, with on average 2-3x more information provided than a traditional keyword search.
Our Technology PLATFORM
ContextualJourney™
Our platform is built exclusively around B2B software buying journeys. It helps us deliver audience intelligence, buyer journey analysis, prompt mining & content mapping - powered by best in class data enrichment, AI & millions of B2B buying data points.
Who we work with
We partner with investors across the private markets who recognise the strategic importance of digital visibility in the AI era. This includes private equity, buyout firms, growth equity and investor backed portfolio companies with a focus on B2B software and tech enabled services.
Why FirstMotion?
FirstMotion combines deep SEO and digital expertise with a forward-looking view of how AI is reshaping buyer journeys. Our founder built and sold one of the UK’s leading B2B SEO agencies, and now leads a consultancy purpose built for the AI search era, supported by senior consultants and proprietary technology.
Explore our latest insights
Interested in working together?
FAQs: AI Search for Investors
This is a fundamental shift. Generative AI is changing how people search, evaluate, and discover products – not just where, but how. AI-native tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews are already shaping buyer behaviour. We see this as a long-term structural change in how digital visibility and demand are created.
Yes. Investors often ask us to work directly with portfolio marketing teams on ongoing generative engine optimisation consulting engagements.
We specialise in B2B software and tech-enabled services businesses where organic search plays a strategic role in customer acquisition and growth.
Yes, we can help to undertake full digital marketing due diligence audits in the B2B software space, encompassing the full channel mix and working alongside commercial due diligence providers as a specialist partner.
Thanks to our proprietary technology and automation supporting our senior team, we can typically turn around an AI search diligence audit within two weeks from kick off.
For fuller engagements that include other channels, projects can take anywhere from 3-6 weeks depending on the scope.
We use our PromptPath™ framework to identify the risk of declining clicks from Google, and the opportunity that could come from AI search.
Yes. Competitive benchmarking is central to our audit process. We assess how visible the target is in generative platforms relative to its peers, and whether competitors are already capturing share in AI search environments.