Triple Whale has acquired Anteater, an AI visibility platform that measures how large language models surface brands, products, and sources in AI-generated answers. The deal marks Triple Whale’s first acquisition and positions the company to offer what it calls an end-to-end view of “AI search” performance—letting brands track LLM visibility alongside traditional commerce and marketing metrics, and tie that exposure to revenue outcomes.
The acquisition targets a fast-emerging challenge for ecommerce operators: as consumers increasingly use tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini for product research, brands can lose visibility into why they are (or aren’t) being recommended. Unlike classic search, LLMs often provide direct answers rather than lists of links or ads, changing how brands are discovered, compared, and chosen. Triple Whale is framing this shift as “AI Engine Optimization” (AEO), a new layer of the funnel that has been difficult to measure.
Triple Whale cited internal platform data to illustrate momentum: merchants recorded more than 424,000 orders referred by LLMs in Q4 2025, versus just over 7,000 across all of 2024—nearly 60x growth year over year. By integrating Anteater, Triple Whale says brands will be able to evaluate visibility by running thousands of consumer-style prompts across major AI models, tracking when a brand is mentioned, which sources are cited, and how that presence compares with competitors. The system also highlights the specific pages, listings, communities, and third-party content that AI models appear to rely on, giving operators clearer guidance on where to influence outcomes.
Triple Whale plans to feed these signals into its Moby AI product, which uses AI agents to deliver recommendations to improve LLM visibility. The company says brands will be able to monitor changes daily across mentions, citations, and sentiment—reducing reliance on guesswork and shortening feedback loops on content and positioning changes.
The announcement also included customer validation from RMS Beauty, which described the move as a logical next step as it evaluates AEO and prepares for a discovery environment shaped by agentic shopping and AI-led recommendations.
KEY QUOTES:
“AI visibility is still early, but its growth is accelerating rapidly, putting it on a clear path to becoming a critical layer of the ecommerce funnel in 2026. By integrating the capabilities of the Anteater platform, we’re giving operators real visibility into how AI models surface products and recommendations, and, more importantly, the ability to connect that visibility directly to outcomes like revenue, so they know what’s working and where to focus next.”
Maxx Blank, Co-founder, Triple Whale
“LLMs are fundamentally changing commerce, ushering in a new era of agentic shopping and discovery where intent, context, and relevance matter more than ever. Triple Whale has been a trusted partner as we’ve navigated many chapters of our DTC growth, and this is a natural next step in what we can build together as we lean into their AEO solutions, and define what the next generation of discovery looks like for RMS Beauty.”
Alejandra Tenorio, Vice President, Digital Marketing and eCommerce, RMS Beauty
