97% of Top Websites Aren’t Ready for AI Agents. BrightEdge Launches New Platform Agent Edge to Change That.

Agent Edge helps enterprises optimize the point of interaction with AI agents across search, AI answers and agent-led discovery

SAN MATEO, Calif., Aug. 26, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BrightEdge, the global leader in AI-powered organic search, today announced its new search solution Agent Edge, designed to help brands understand, optimize and act on the rapidly growing interactions between AI agents and enterprise websites.

AI agents are evolving from systems that simply retrieve information into increasingly capable digital assistants that research products, compare options, check availability and take multiple steps on behalf of people. BrightEdge believes these interactions are creating a “Second Web” — a new layer of access that creates a second audience for enterprise content: AI agents acting on a person’s behalf, often before that person ever visits the brand’s website, not a replacement for the web built for people or search engines.

The Second Web and The Point of Interaction

At the center of the Second Web is a new point of interaction between the brand and the agent. As AI systems gain more autonomy, the quality of that interaction can influence what information an agent finds, how efficiently it understands a brand and whether that brand ultimately becomes part of an AI-generated recommendation.

Yet most enterprises are not prepared for this shift. BrightEdge research found that 97% of the top 20,000 websites are not currently set up to serve AI agents in optimized formats such as Markdown, which can significantly reduce the amount of content an agent needs to process.

In separate BrightEdge research analyzing ChatGPT recommendations across nine industry categories from June 2025 to June 2026, ChatGPT was found to be researching more but recommending less: the number of sources it cited per answer nearly doubled (+89%), while the number of brands it recommended fell by around 25%. E-commerce saw the steepest decline, with recommendations dropping from roughly six brands to four, while B2B tech held steady at around four.

More than half (61%) of the sites analyzed have implemented schema, an important foundation for helping machines understand website content. But schema alone does not create an agent-optimized experience. Only a small fraction of sites have taken the additional step of serving content specifically designed for AI agent consumption, with early adopters including WordPress, Cloudflare, Linktree and Zendesk.

“AI agents are getting dramatically better at doing the work people once had to do themselves,” said Jim Yu, CEO and co-founder of BrightEdge. “They are researching, comparing and taking action on our behalf, making the point of interaction between an agent and a brand increasingly critical. The companies that can understand and optimize those interactions will have a significant advantage as this second audience grows.”

Giving AI Agents a Faster Path to the Right Information

Traditional websites were built for people and browsers, often requiring AI agents to process complex HTML, JavaScript, navigation and other elements that add little value to machine research. Agent Edge recognizes agent requests at the CDN layer and serves content in a format designed for how agents process information — minimizing wasted tokens and maximizing the value of the information delivered in each request.

Agent Edge then uses BrightEdge intelligence to anticipate the questions an agent is likely to ask next and enrich the content with relevant, data-informed answers — building on the content brands have already invested in rather than requiring them to create a separate experience from scratch. Instead of forcing the agent to return repeatedly to fill in missing context, Agent Edge gives it a more complete response up front, reducing unnecessary processing and minimizing the number of requests needed to complete its research.

In an early deployment with Arm, the semiconductor and software design company behind billions of devices, BrightEdge reduced the payload served to AI agents by approximately 90%. Within weeks, verified AI agent traffic to optimized content more than doubled and, on some pages, tripled.

Another early Agent Edge customer, Bloomfire, saw a 30% lift in direct AI referral traffic following implementation, demonstrating how optimizing the agent experience can translate into measurable discovery and traffic gains.

“We’ve spent years thinking about how people move through our content. Now we also have to think about how agents move through it,” said Brian Zander, VP of Marketing for Bloomfire and early user of Agent Edge. “Agent Edge helps us understand where those interactions are happening, what information agents need, and how to make that experience more efficient without rebuilding the site around a new channel.”

Agent Edge puts the content brands have already invested in to work for AI agents without requiring a separate content operation. Like offering a translated menu to a traveler, it presents the same trusted information in a format designed for how agents consume it.

From there, Agent Edge creates a continuous loop that helps brands:

• Reveal the invisible audience: See which AI agents are interacting with the brand, what they are trying to access and how that behavior is changing.
• Shape the interaction at the source: Optimize the point where agents meet the business, so they get the right information in the right format with less friction.
• Turn existing content into an agent advantage: Extend the value of content brands have already created instead of building a separate AI content operation from scratch.
• Connect agent performance to the broader search strategy: Bring agent interactions into the same intelligence layer as SEO and AI Search, so brands can optimize across all three rather than manage them in silos.

Together, these capabilities give brands a way to actively shape performance across the Second Web while connecting it back to the search and AI investments already driving visibility today.

Building for a Web That Is Still Taking Shape

Agent Edge extends BrightEdge’s Optimize Once, Win Everywhere vision by bringing agent-led discovery into the same platform brands already use to optimize traditional search and AI answers.

Because these capabilities operate on one platform, the same content, data and intelligence can inform every surface — helping brands avoid fragmented strategies as search and agent behavior continue to evolve.

“The Second Web will not be built all at once,” Yu added. “It will emerge interaction by interaction as agents take on more responsibility for researching and acting on behalf of people. Our goal is to give brands one connected platform to understand and optimize those interactions as they evolve.”

Learn more about Agent Edge and how BrightEdge is helping brands optimize across search, AI answers and the Second Web at https://www.brightedge.com/agent-edge

About BrightEdge
BrightEdge is the global leader in Enterprise SEO and AI-powered content performance. For more than 18 years, BrightEdge has helped thousands of brands and digital marketers, including 57% of the Fortune 500, transform online opportunities into measurable business results. Its industry-first platform integrates the most comprehensive dataset in search, combining insights from traditional SEO, digital media, social, and content with cutting-edge generative AI capabilities, including its deep learning engine DataMind and AI Catalyst platform. Trusted by enterprises, mid-market companies, and leading digital agencies, BrightEdge continues to set the standard for innovation in search and AI, enabling brands to win by becoming an integral part of the digital experience.

Contact: press@brightedge.com