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Why "AI Visibility" is critical for your brand with James Cadwallader, Co-Founder & CEO at Profound

·50 min·3 clips
James Cadwallader calls AI search “the biggest platform shift in the history of the internet.”
James Cadwallader joins the show as the conversation turns to a problem every brand is starting to notice. He says the internet is in the middle of the biggest platform shift in its history, maybe even in the history of capitalism. He frames search as one of the most important technologies that came out of the internet. He also points out that roughly 200 billion of Google's roughly 300 billion in revenue comes from search advertising. That makes the change feel structural, not cosmetic. He describes search as having been a kind of no-fly zone for the last 25 or 26 years. Now, he says, that is changing. People are no longer only typing into a box. They are talking to the internet and getting answers back. That shift is what Profound is built around. The host steers the discussion toward how Cadwallader thinks as a founder. Cadwallader says he has always loved business. He compares it to a sport. He says that, left to himself, he would spend his time listening to podcasts and reading books about great companies. David Senra comes up as someone he knows and admires. Cadwallader says Senra is an investor in Profound and describes meeting him as meeting an idol. He says he has been running his own companies since he was very young. He also says he has never had a real job. That line helps explain the intensity he brings to the work. He says this moment feels like the culmination of everything he has done so far. When the conversation turns to commitment, he defines going all in as leaving no stone unturned. He says it means working as hard as possible. He says it means 12 to 15 hour days, every day. He also acknowledges the personal side of that pace. A very thoughtful fiancee, he says, puts up with it. The episode keeps coming back to the idea that this is not a small tweak in marketing. It is a change in how information is found. It is also a change in how brands earn attention. Cadwallader presents the opportunity as urgent, practical, and huge.

As heard by us

AI search is becoming a major discovery channel for companies.

James Cadwallader, CEO of Profound, makes a clear case that AI search is changing how people discover information online. The episode keeps its focus on that shift, showing how companies now have to think about being surfaced inside AI search results as well as through…

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See why AI search is changing how companies get found.

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