AI Answer Distribution

A repeat founder reports that ChatGPT and Claude now account for the majority of signups to a new marketplace and have become its largest acquisition channel. The evidence is one direct operator account, but it extends an established line across other answer-engine referral observations. The commercial implication is that product comparison pages, structured category information and trustworthy citations are becoming distribution assets for AI-mediated discovery, not only conventional search optimization.

The distribution shift from search engines to answer engines is becoming visible from both sides of the market. Publishers are considering withdrawing from Google as referral traffic falls, while SaaS founders report sudden inbound traffic from ChatGPT. The evidence remains early, but it indicates that software discovery and content economics may be reorganizing around model-mediated recommendations.

Early buyer and founder reports suggest that software discovery is moving into AI answers: a buyer selected and paid for a SaaS tool through ChatGPT without visiting vendor sites, while founders are beginning to track recommendations in Google AI Overviews. A separate founder describes manual monitoring of buying intent across public conversations as a valuable but unsolved acquisition workflow. The evidence is currently concentrated on Reddit and includes self-reported cases, so this remains a weak signal rather than a validated market shift. Confirm or refute it by observing repeated buyer journeys, dedicated visibility products, and evidence from independent channels.