How LLMs Discover and Recommend Tech Startups
In the startup world, attention is currency and with the rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Egune and more, that currency has a new market. For early-stage tech companies, it’s no longer just about impressing investors or users — it’s about being discoverable by AI itself.
At ClearStory International, we have been working with fast-scaling startups for close to a decade and increasingly we’re asked why PR matters in the age of AI.
Over the past 18 months, we’ve observed a shift in how influence and visibility work. Today, AI language models are increasingly becoming gatekeepers as users shift away from traditional search engines such as Google or Bing. These LLM’s are structured differently when it comes to how people find the services they require and unfortunately for startups, it’s the incumbents who have the advantage as they are already discoverable.
So what does this mean for your startup? Quite simply: credible media coverage is now algorithmically strategic.
LLMs Crave Credible Sources
Language models like ChatGPT, Claude, or DeepSeek aren’t magic. They’re trained on enormous volumes of text including news articles, product reviews, investor blogs, and launch coverage. When a user asks:
“What’s a good AI tool for summarising legal documents?”
“Are there any new OKR platforms for remote teams?”
“What’s the best startup for API security in 2025?”
The LLM searches for patterns in its training data. It surfaces names and tools it has seen repeatedly mentioned in trusted sources – typically national level news or international level trade publications. The likes of TechCrunch, Sifted, Wired, Product Hunt, or other related industry sites.
In short: AI discovers your startup the same way humans do — through credible third-party validation.
How LLM’s Work When Sourcing Recommendations
Keeping it simple, here is what drives LLM recommendations:
- Credibility: Did a known journalist, analyst, or outlet write about you?
- Frequency: Have you appeared in multiple trusted sources?
- Recency: Are you part of the current conversation in your space?
- Relevance: Is your product aligned with emerging patterns (e.g. “Slack integration,” “seed-stage cybersecurity,” “founder-friendly pricing”)?
If you’re mentioned in a TechCrunch launch piece, a Product Hunt roundup, or a VC’s trend blog, there’s a good chance you’ll start showing up in LLM answers when users search for tools like yours.
What Happens When You Don’t Compete – You’ll Have To Play Catch-Up?
You may have:
- A beautifully designed product
- Happy customers
- A strong roadmap
But if you’ve never been profiled, reviewed, or covered in a source LLMs recognize — you’re invisible to the most influential digital recommender system of this decade.
AI models don’t trawl your website the way Google does. They rely on published, external context to assess:
- Trust
- Momentum
- Category fit
Without it, you’re just another noun in a sea of noise.
What Can You Do?
We’re advising our clients to rethink PR not just as a brand play but as a strategic AI visibility tactic. That means:
- Targeting high-signal media: TechCrunch, Sifted, Forbes Tech Council, and credible vertical outlets.
- Pursuing launch moments that are picked up by AI-indexed aggregators like Product Hunt or YC Demo Day.
- Telling stories that match search intent: “the affordable alternative to X,” “privacy-first Y tool for remote teams,” etc.
We’ve already seen startups with relatively modest funding leapfrog larger competitors in LLM-driven product searches simply because they were more discoverable through media.
Your Reputation Is Now Infrastructure
In a world where AI is the first touchpoint for product discovery, your media footprint is not just reputation it is now infrastructure. Being present in trusted publications is how you get recommended, cited, and remembered.
At ClearStory International, we help startups craft stories that matter — and place them where it counts, both for humans and for algorithms.
If your startup wants to be part of the LLM conversation, you need to be in the right media conversations first.
Let’s make that happen.
