LLMs Ate the Search Bar, Now What? - The Ostrich Report cover art

LLMs Ate the Search Bar, Now What? - The Ostrich Report

LLMs Ate the Search Bar, Now What? - The Ostrich Report

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 Max Sinclair blew our minds last week ( Hendrik Laubscher ) and I. We welcomed him onto the Ostrich Report to have what we thought would be a normal enough discussion about AI and its productivity gains for markketplace sellers. Wrong. Azoma occupy a unique space and have a long history in this space. 2 co founders with skills and experience, one from the Death Star (Amazon) who combined to build products for customers such as Mars - their customer list almost seems secondary to them - the product is critical. Isn't everyones? No. Nor is their product, for evereyone I mean. His words, not mine - refreshingly honest and clear on their purpose. We even talked ethics and controls needed to run in parallel with AI growth. Azoma have 2 patents - 1 granted and 1 pending. This in itself, in this field is incredible. But it tells a tale of masters of their craft. I first met Max where we shared a gin in Belfast overlooking Harland and Wolf, that infamous dockyard. I was in the close company of Dean D. McElwee and Jacqueline Smith-Dubendorfer - Max was confident and quietly assessing the room. With hindsight I can see he had alreqady outgrown most of us. He unpacks how answer engines, agentic browsers, and soon physical AI will reshape discovery, ads, and the P&L politics inside brands. If you’re still optimising blue links, this one’s a gentle shove into 2025.HighlightsFrom keywords to conversations: LLMs are already baked into Amazon, Walmart, and others — whether you see the chat UI or not. “Search” is becoming ask → answer → act.Azoma’s patents underpin a system that simulates how people talk to AI engines at scale, tracks citations/crawler patterns, and models brand share of voice in AI.Who’s buying this stuff: Pilots start with central/search CoEs, but brand teams fund the roll-outs, because the ROI shows up as revenue lift or major cost reduction in content ops.Ads vs answers: In an answer-first world, users won’t tolerate ad clutter. Expect new monetisation (affiliate/referral rails, Stripe-like takes) and hyper-personalised, generated promotions, not today’s slotting.What’s next (near-term): Agentic browsers, then true multi-step agents, then physical AI (smart fridges, mirrors, in-home devices) and lightweight AR moments (hello, Ray-Ban Meta).Ethics with teeth: The dangerous AI wasn’t GenAI; it was the deterministic engagement algorithms we couldn’t reset. Max argues for user-controlled “reset my algorithm” and a hard line against government data centralisation.5 Big Takeaways for OperatorsAEO > SEO: Start treating AI engines as distribution. Track your share of voice in AI, your citations, and how prompts/personas surface (or bury) your brand.Move the budget.Design for questions, not keywords: Your product data, FAQs, UGC, and how-to context must answer situations (“desk has a drawer; need clamp”)—that’s what LLMs reward.This was our best yet.Someone should sponsor this. Are you listening RithumQuotables (that actually came from the show)“LLMs are already the future of marketplace search. The only question is whether you see the chat interface or not.” — Max“You can’t build the future with rear-view data.” — Max“The buyer is shifting. Pilots start with central teams, but brand P&Ls pay when we prove revenue or crush content costs.” — Max“People won’t wait through ads for an answer. The best customer experience wins, not the biggest ad slot.” — Max“Affiliate-style economics will power agentic commerce. Think Stripe, but for answers that convert.” — MaxRufus (Amazon’s answer engine) in the wild for complex, contextual shoppingAgentic browsers: Atlas, Perplexity, Comet—early signals of the UI shiftBrands using Azoma today (as cited by Max): Mars, Arla, Zappos, HP, ColgateReading rec: The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly (framework for what feels “obvious” in hindsight)Chapter GuideShow Notes / Mentions
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