Exclusive: AirOps targets emerging AI search market with autonomous content optimization agent

AirOps, the business name of Rivington Labs Inc., today introduced Quill, an artificial intelligence agent designed to help brands maintain visibility in generative AI search engines by continuously monitoring, updating and creating content.

The San Francisco-based startup is building its business on the broader shift from traditional search engine optimization to what is increasingly being called “AI engine optimization.” Rather than focusing exclusively on search rankings and inbound traffic, AEO aims to improve brand visibility in AI-generated responses. Some researchers have forecast that AI search will overtake Google search by 2030.

“Most search and discovery, whether it’s Google or ChatGPT, is becoming generative,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Alex Halliday. “The traditional 10 blue links are being replaced by generative surfaces, which is where we primarily focus.”

Evolving field

In a recent analysis, Halliday asserted that ChatGPT’s recent rollout of ads in its free and low-cost tiers is reshaping AI search and reducing the value of traditional SEO tactics. Quill’s research established that the mix of results is rapidly evolving, with product pages, reviews and highly specific content now cited more than broad educational articles.

Quill is an autonomous agent that monitors content performance across multiple AI platforms, identifies gaps or stale information and drafts updates or entirely new material for approval by human operators. The approach recognizes the importance of continually updating information to remain relevant to AI crawlers.

“Content moves in this world from being a campaign-based or single-item-based world to a more continuous system that the agents will be partnering with the team to execute on,” Halliday said. “Freshness matters much more in AI search than it does in traditional SEO.”

The platform currently tracks eight AI engines, including OpenAI LLC’s ChatGPT, Anthropic PBC’s Claude, Perplexity AI Inc.’s, Amazon.com Inc.’s Rufus and Google LLC’s AI Mode. Halliday said demand has accelerated rapidly as enterprises realize the potential for AI-generated answers to shape purchasing decisions without users ever clicking through to a company website.

AirOps started with a ChatGPT-only focus but “got pulled more and more in that direction of becoming an AEO platform,” Halliday said. “That’s now our sole focus.”

The company said Quill uses a combination of large-scale behavioral analysis and customer-specific onboarding to tailor content generation. Halliday said the company has collected over 2.5 billion AI search responses to study citation patterns and understand how generative engines evaluate freshness, authority and writing structure. It defines a citation as an AI-generated response that directly references a company’s published content.

The customer onboarding process incorporates training on company-specific material such as videos, transcripts, prior writing and proprietary information to help Quill generate more distinctive content.

That focus reflects growing concerns among search providers about low-quality, mass-produced AI content. Halliday said search algorithms are increasingly penalizing what platforms describe as “scaled abuse.”

“The algorithms have been actively working to de-rank scaled abuse and low-quality content,” he said. “What does matter is whether that content is adding some unique knowledge or perspective.”

Human in the loop

The system maintains human oversight despite its autonomous capabilities. Halliday said all final publishing decisions currently require human approval, although smaller updates such as seasonal FAQ changes may eventually become fully automated.

“The brands we work with have spent a decade building their brands and they’re pretty conservative in many ways,” he said.

One of Quill’s most distinctive features is its ability to monitor how brands appear in AI-generated responses and alert customers when citation share declines. Halliday said Quill can automatically identify areas where updated or expanded content may improve visibility.

“If we notice that Airbnb is starting to lose ChatGPT citation share for its food and drink tour in Paris, we can start to ping the right people internally to have them either create content or update the content,” he said.

The company said early customers are reporting substantial gains in AI-generated citations and share of voice, with one customer reporting a 165% increase in citations and a 42% increase in share of voice after deploying Quill.

While acknowledging that about 75% of good AEO tactics are basically the same as SEO, Halliday said generative AI introduces new dynamics in the way people search for information.

“In SEO, people used to fight over short-form phrases,” he said. “Now the average length of a search query is much longer, and that pushes them into the long tail.”

AirOps said Quill will be available to existing customers at no additional cost starting today. The company has raised approximately $57 million to date and currently employs 140 people, a figure Halliday said could grow to more than 200 by year-end.

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