Former Yahoo and Cartology executives launch AI consultancy

Former Yahoo executive Dan Richardson and former Cartology and Coles360 product leader Bec Penn have launched Obsessd.ai, a consultancy focused on helping brands measure their visibility across AI platforms.

Operating from Sydney and Melbourne, the business will advise brands and retailers on how they appear in responses generated by platforms including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot.

At the centre of the consultancy is the Obsessd Visibility Index, a proprietary framework that scores brands across visibility, accuracy and competitive position.

The business said the index was designed to give marketers a standardised measure of AI discoverability and allow them to compare performance across different platforms and competitors.

“When we sit down with local marketing teams and ask how they are performing in paid search or SEO, they have dashboards ready,” Richardson said.

“But ask what ChatGPT versus Gemini or Claude says about their brand and most have no idea beyond screenshots from ad-hoc prompts. That’s the gap that we are here to fill.”

Obsessd.ai said audits of prominent Australian brands found an average of 60% of AI discovery queries returned no brand result, although it did not disclose the size or methodology of the analysis.

Penn said traditional brand awareness did not necessarily translate into visibility within AI-generated answers.

“Brands have spent years and millions of dollars building awareness, but awareness is not discoverability,” she said.

“The AI layer does not care how much you have spent on the brand. It surfaces what it can read, what it trusts and what has been structured to answer the question being asked.”

The consultancy’s launch clients include personalised gift business Personalised Favours and Sydney fragrance brand By Yuliya.