Sitecore acquires Scrunch to help brands appear in AI search results
Sitecore has acquired Scrunch, an AI customer experience platform that monitors how brands appear in AI-generated search results. The company will integrate Scrunch's tools into its digital experience platform, which enterprises use to manage content and customer interactions.
The acquisition addresses a growing problem: as AI search engines replace traditional search, brands risk being misrepresented or omitted from AI-generated answers. Sitecore's chief executive Eric Stine said the combined platform lets customers "understand how they are represented in AI-generated answers and automatically act on those insights."
Why this matters for marketers
Gartner forecasts traditional search engine traffic will fall 25% by 2026 as AI chatbots take over. When Google displays AI summaries alongside results, users click traditional search links only 8% of the time, compared with 15% when no summary appears.
Yet most marketing teams aren't ready. A Semrush study found only 22% of US marketers have a fully integrated AI search and SEO strategy. More concerning: 37% report competitors appear more often in AI results than their own brands.
Scrunch's platform tracks buyer queries, brand representation, competitive positioning, source citations, and content gaps across AI systems. Unlike standalone answer engine optimization tools, it connects these insights directly to content workflows in Sitecore's publishing and asset management products.
Measurable results from early adopters
Akamai tested pages optimized for AI systems against standard pages. The optimized pages saw a 364% increase in brand presence for non-branded searches and a 218% increase in citations in AI-generated results.
Runpod reported a 400% increase in paying customers after optimizing for AI search visibility.
These results suggest that how your content is formatted for AI systems directly affects whether potential customers find you.
The content problem
Many enterprises have content that AI systems struggle to access or process. Scrunch's Agent Experience Platform reformats existing content so large language models can parse and cite it correctly. This becomes part of Sitecore's broader AI content management suite.
For marketing leaders, the takeaway is straightforward: AI search visibility requires a different approach than traditional SEO. Your content needs to be discoverable and properly formatted for AI agents, not just search crawlers.
Learn more about AI for Marketing or explore the AI Learning Path for Marketing Managers to understand how these shifts affect strategy.
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