Pictured above: Richard Conway.
A new Auckland-based digital performance agency, The Optimisers, is aiming to help businesses adapt to a rapidly shifting online landscape where artificial intelligence, rather than traditional search results, increasingly determines how customers discover brands.
Borne out of Pure SEO, a digital agency founded in 2009, The Optimisers has launched with a focus on helping enterprise organisations, challenger brands and high-growth businesses maintain visibility as discovery moves away from conventional search engines and towards AI-generated answers and autonomous digital agents.
The company is founded by Richard Conway, a search and digital marketing specialist with more than two decades’ experience advising organisations across New Zealand, Australia and the UK.
Conway says the way consumers find and evaluate brands is undergoing a fundamental shift.
“We’re moving into a world where your next customer may never see a traditional search results page,” he says.
“They’ll see one AI-generated answer, or an AI agent will shortlist options and act on their behalf. The Optimisers exists to make sure our clients are visible in those answers, trusted by those systems, and chosen in ways that deliver clear commercial impact.”
Discovery without clicks
The agency launches amid accelerating adoption of generative AI tools and agent-based systems that can research and act on behalf of users.
Conway says this shift challenges the traditional assumptions behind digital marketing.
“Agentic AI refers to AI systems that don’t just answer questions, they take action on behalf of a user,” he explains.
“Rather than searching for ‘best broadband deal’ and browsing results, a user simply tells their AI agent to find and sign up for the best plan. The agent researches, evaluates, and executes, without the human visiting a single website.”
That evolution means marketing teams must rethink who their audience actually is.
“For the past two decades, we’ve been optimising for human attention and click behaviour,” Conway says.
“Agentic AI means your next customer may never see your website, your ad, or your homepage. An AI will decide whether you’re worth considering and marketing stacks built for human browsers are not built for this.”
From SEO to AI discovery
The Optimisers has built its offering around what it calls an “AI Discovery Stack”, a framework designed to help brands appear inside AI-generated answers and agent-led recommendation systems.
The model integrates Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Agentic SEO into a single performance framework linking AI visibility to measurable commercial outcomes.
“Marketing teams across ANZ are investing heavily in AI tools,” Conway says.
“What’s missing is a performance framework that translates those investments into reliable demand outcomes. That’s the gap we built The Optimisers to solve.”
The agency says programmes typically focus on improving visibility inside AI answers and summaries, structuring content so brands become the “best answer”, and building machine-readable trust signals that help AI systems evaluate brands.
A narrowing competitive field
Conway believes the rise of AI agents will compress competition online as systems present fewer options to users.
“When AI agents shortlist options, the visible competitive set narrows dramatically,” he says. “If you’re not in the shortlist when the shortlist is formed, you’re not just missing a click, you are absent from the entire decision.”
For businesses, this means ensuring their digital infrastructure can be easily interpreted by machines, not just human visitors.
“Machine legibility means your digital infrastructure can be read, interpreted and acted upon by AI systems, not just humans,” he says.
“If an agent can’t verify stock levels, pricing, security credentials and return terms in milliseconds, it moves on to a competitor who is machine legible.”
Preparing for the AI-mediated economy
To support organisations navigating the transition, The Optimisers has developed what it calls an “Agentic Readiness Audit”, designed to assess whether a company’s technology, content architecture and brand signals are prepared for AI-led discovery.
Conway says the shift is already on the radar of senior marketing leaders across sectors including retail, financial services and B2B technology.
“Early in 2026 we’re seeing CMOs and chief digital officers begin to take this seriously as LLM-referred revenue becomes measurable and trackable,” he says.
For businesses still taking a wait-and-see approach, Conway offers a blunt warning.
“I understand the instinct,” he says. “But who wants to be the next Kodak or Blockbuster Video?”
“The brands that are investing in agentic readiness now are building trust signals, structured data infrastructure and LLM footprint that compound over time. Waiting is a choice.”
