Durham-based startup Majentics is building tools for an internet increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. Its platform helps businesses transition from traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to AI Engine Optimization (AEO), enabling visibility and citation as search moves from humans to machines.
Majentics was founded by Dirk Nicol, who, shortly after wrapping up a decade-long stint at IBM, began working for a blockchain computer company where he used early versions of ChatGPT and other LLMs. Quickly grasping AI’s relevance, he used it to help with a major go-to-market plan after his team was cut in half.
This process helped him recognize that the technology was going to change the future, and he decided he wanted to be a part of that change.
“Either I was going to stick around in companies and dabble with AI, or I was going to go all in—and I decided to go all in,” Nicol said.
A shifting landscape
The early version of what would become Majentics began as AI Transformation, a consulting practice thorugh which Nicol focused on helping small business and large corporation clients alike understand and adopt artificial intelligence. As he trained others, Nicol was simultaneously deepening his own expertise.
Eventually one client, a small e-commerce business, asked for help using AI to improve search engine optimization. That request triggered a realization in Nicol that went beyond SEO: The way search works was already changing, and quickly.
For decades, the internet was designed around humans. Search engines like Google assumed a person was typing a few keywords, scanning links, and clicking through websites. The results were largely deterministic—meaning that if two people searched the same phrase, they would see nearly identical results. Modern practices of digital marketing and SEO were essentially built around optimizing for these predictable search systems.
But as Nicol recognized early, AI has disrupted the model. Large language models like ChatGPT are conversational, context-aware, and non-deterministic, producing different responses to the same questions depending on phrasing, prior interactions, model updates, and more. Instead of returning a list of links, AI systems synthesize information and deliver direct answers.
[With AI] there is much more variability [than traditional search]”, Nicol said, “This creates a problem for brands.”
This shift has led to what is known as “zero-click” search, whereby users increasingly get the information they need without ever visiting a website—even though an AI system may have drawn that information from one. As a result, traffic to websites is declining. A naturally emerging goal for brands aiming to regain visibility and traffic is to be cited within AI-generated responses.
This is the kind of outcome Nicol is helping businesses optimize for with his product.
How Majentics optimizes
The current version of Majentics analyzes a website by ingesting its URL and returning scores across four categories: Human Conversion, SEO, AI Engines, and AI Agents. It also provides recommendations and quick fix suggestions.
The platform evaluates human-focused marketing and conversion elements—such as layout, clarity, and calls to action—alongside traditional SEO factors like content quality, structure, and user experience signals. It also assesses AI Engine Optimization, providing an AEO readiness score and an example snippet showing how an AI system might describe the site or business at hand.
Majentics ultimately generates an AI Agent readiness score for a given client, measuring how prepared a site is for agent-driven interactions, including structured data access and machine readability. Each category is scored on a 100-point scale.
Beyond individual site analysis, the platform also examines how a brand appears in AI search results, which competitors are being cited, and why. It then identifies gaps and offers actionable fixes, including schema markup, FAQ structures, content organization, and semantic optimization.
Nicol has three divisional patent applications pending related to the startup’s AI readiness scoring system.
Recognition and what’s next
In the near term, Majentics is focused on launching its paid SaaS platform (the current product is a free version) and building steady revenue, primarily by serving marketing agencies and small- to mid-sized businesses that are already feeling the effects of declining web traffic and shifting search behavior.
“Agencies are probably going to be a really good immediate customer. They’re under pressure, their SEO business is drying up, so they’re looking for a new business: AEO,” Nicol said. “They may not know how to do it, so [Majentics] could be a great way of making new product line for them.”
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Startup: Majentics
Founder: Dirk Nicol
Founded: 2025
Team size: 1
Location: Durham
Website: majentics.com
Funding: Bootstrapped
Longer term, Nicol envisions Majentics expanding beyond search and becoming a broader platform designed for machine-first customer journeys. As AI agents increasingly handle research, shopping, and decision-making on behalf of users, businesses will need new tools to structure content, data, and interactions for machines rather than humans.
Nicol expects this shift to reshape marketing teams, workflows, and even job roles, creating demand for entirely new ways of managing digital presence.
Since launching the company, Nicol has embedded himself in North Carolina’s startup ecosystem. He was accepted into the FCAT Fellowship shortly after joining American Underground (pitching this past fall at the program’s demo day) and has since participated in multiple pitch competitions, including Venture135 and ConvergeSouth, where he received early validation for his approach with Majentics.
