How Gumlet got found and cited in AI search: close to 20% of inbound revenue now traces back to AI discovery

On this page

1. Results at a glance
2. The challenge: Gumlet wasn’t on the shortlist
3. How the focus moved from ChatGPT to Google AI
4. The first 90 days: from invisible to a ChatGPT-referred demo
5. What we did
6. Results
7. How we work together
8. What this means for your SaaS
9. FAQ

Results at a glance

What we measured	Before	After	Source
Inbound revenue traced to AI discovery	Not measured	Close to 20%	Divyesh Patel, co-founder and CMO (TechBehemoths, Dec 2025)
New users who say AI sent them	13% (Jan 2026)	25.96% (week of Oct 12, 2026)	Gumlet onboarding survey
Key-event rate, ChatGPT vs Organic Search	1.0x (Organic Search)	About 3.3x (ChatGPT)	Gumlet GA4, 29 Jan 2025 to 20 Oct 2026
Share of AI answers, DRM and video security prompts	22.0%	37.7%	DerivateX AI visibility tracking, Jul to Aug 2026
Time to first ChatGPT-referred demo	Kickoff, 29 Jan 2025	About 12 weeks (22 Apr 2025)	Gumlet GA4
Published work	n/a	275 pieces (149 on 68 outside sites, 126 on gumlet.com)	Gumlet content calendar, Oct 2026

The challenge: Gumlet wasn’t on the shortlist

Gumlet had a strong product, thousands of customers and years of Google rankings. AI assistants didn’t care.

In February 2025, in our first round of tests, ChatGPT put Gumlet at the top in roughly 1 of every 40 to 50 runs. Most of the time it wasn’t mentioned at all. By June, things had moved, but not on the questions that matter most. When co-founder Aditya Patadia checked logged-out ChatGPT, its top picks for video hosting were Mux, Cloudflare Stream and AWS Elemental. Gumlet wasn’t on the list.

Buyers were shortlisting video hosting platforms inside Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. If Gumlet wasn’t in the answer, it wasn’t on the shortlist. And nothing in Gumlet’s analytics showed how many deals that was costing.

How the focus moved from ChatGPT to Google AI

When we started in January 2025, ChatGPT was where Gumlet’s buyers were beginning to shortlist video platforms, so it came first. By spring 2026 buyers were arriving from Claude and Gemini too, and they converted well. Since mid-2026 the main focus has been Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, because Google is still where most of Gumlet’s buyers search. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot are still tracked, just not chased.

As a full-service SEO and GEO agency, we work on Google and AI answers together: the pages that earn a place in Google are the pages its AI answers draw from. On 20 October 2026, the AI Overview for “best video hosting platform with DRM” listed Gumlet Video second (see above), and on 21 October Google AI Mode named Gumlet second in its comparison of secure DRM video hosts. More on what Google AI Overviews actually cite.

The first 90 days: from invisible to a ChatGPT-referred demo

The early phase was all about ChatGPT. We didn’t start with a six-month plan and a quiet quarter; we started with the queries most likely to move.

The first signal came in week 3. In week 11, ChatGPT started citing an IndieHackers post from Aditya, “How we built a faster, cheaper alternative to Vimeo and why people are switching”. In week 12, Gumlet booked its first demo from ChatGPT referral traffic.

DerivateX brings a level of depth and execution in LLM SEO that is still very rare.

What we did

Three things moved Gumlet’s AI visibility: pages on gumlet.com that answer buyer questions directly, third-party articles on the sites AI assistants actually read, and one consistent way of describing Gumlet everywhere. Behind all three sits measurement that ties it to sign-ups.

What we liked early on was that DerivateX did not treat AI SEO as a buzzword or a future bet. The approach was very practical and data-driven.

1. Pages on gumlet.com built to be quoted

We wrote 109 new blog posts and optimized existing ones, each built to answer a buyer question directly.

• Bottom-of-funnel on Gumlet’s blog, top-of-funnel off-site. Comparisons, pricing explainers and “best of” guides live on gumlet.com, where buyers convert.
• Written to be quoted. Clear answers up top, comparison tables and FAQs built from real buyer questions.
• Technical groundwork. A site-wide structured data audit, product schema, an FAQ hub and index cleanup.
• Proof it reaches Google too. Four of our guides now sit in Gumlet’s own top-10 pages for their topics in Search Console (see Results).

2. Third-party articles on the sites AI assistants read

AI assistants don’t take a brand’s word for it. They repeat what comparison articles, publications and forums say. So most of our effort went into third-party articles and link building off-site: 149 pieces on 68 outside sites.

Highlights: a lesson page on TED-Ed (December 2025), founder posts on IndieHackers and a founder AMA on Reddit r/SaaS, plus dozens of industry publications.

Did AI assistants actually use them? Yes. One third-party article alone drove 17% of all citations we tracked from December 2025 to March 2026.

3. Prompt-by-prompt wins we could measure

We measured Gumlet’s share of AI answers prompt by prompt, before and after each round of content.

The biggest jump: for a “best Wistia alternatives” prompt for B2B teams, AI answers naming Gumlet went from 0% to 67%.

4. Fixing “cited but not recommended”

By mid-2026 Gumlet had a new problem: Google AI Overviews were citing Gumlet’s pages but recommending competitors on category questions. We call it cited but not recommended.

The reason: every competitor had one short label that Google repeated. Gumlet had about 30 different one-off descriptions across its site and the web, so AI systems had no single phrase to attach to it.

The fix was simple to say and hard to do: lock one consistent description, “all-in-one video hosting platform”, and use it everywhere. It went into the homepage title, schema, content and the copy AI assistants read about Gumlet by the end of August 2026. By 20 October, Google’s AI Overview for “best video hosting platform with DRM” described Gumlet as best for “all-in-one media hosting” (see the AI Overview at the top).

5. The State of Video report

On 17 July 2026 Gumlet published The State of Enterprise Video Hosting Post-Vimeo, a research report we helped build on Gumlet’s own migration data: 12,000 accounts, 900K+ hours and 2+ PB of video moved.

We turned the numbers into a data story for the press. It ran on Yahoo Finance on 7 August 2026, along with other financial news sites.

6. Measurement that ties AI to sign-ups

Click data undercounts AI. Most buyers who hear about you in an AI answer search your name on Google or type your URL. So we set up three checks that work together, the same way we measure AI search ROI for every client:

• Ask at sign-up. In August 2025 Gumlet’s “How did you hear about us?” question got an AI option.
• Check the answers against referrer data for chatgpt.com, Gemini, Claude and Copilot.
• Track the answers themselves, prompt by prompt, so content decisions follow data.

Gumlet’s own read after the first two months of survey data shows why all three matter: of the people who said they first heard of Gumlet through AI, 58% arrived via Google and 25% came direct.

Results

Today, close to 20 percent of our inbound revenue can be traced back to users who first discovered Gumlet through AI tools. This was not something we were even measuring before working with DerivateX, and it has now become a channel we actively monitor.

Read the full reviews on TechBehemoths and Clutch.

AI assistants send buyers who convert

Every AI assistant we could measure converts better than Organic Search, led by ChatGPT, then Claude and Gemini. Buyers who arrive from an AI answer have usually already compared their options.

ChatGPT, our first focus, has sent Gumlet visitors every single week since kickoff. Most of those visits land where buyers make decisions: the homepage, the pricing page and the video hosting page.

We saw a significant jump in referrals from ChatGPT. The traffic also had a higher conversion rate.

1 in 4 new users now say AI sent them

In the week of October 12 to 18, 2026, 25.96% of new users chose the AI option when asked how they found Gumlet. AI has landed between about 20% and 30% every week since mid-September 2026.

It didn’t jump once and fade: AI’s share of all onboardings doubled from 9.7% to about 19.5% after the March 2026 publishing sprint, then held.

Are people just ticking a box? We checked. Visitors who arrived from chatgpt.com were about 19x as likely as visitors from google.com to say AI sent them. The survey matches where people actually came from.

Our guides earned a place in Google, too

Google and AI search reward the same thing: a clear, specific answer. Four guides we wrote now rank among Gumlet’s top-10 pages for their topic in Search Console:

• Video hosting: Anti-leak private video hosting (written March 2026) is #5 of Gumlet’s video hosting pages, and YouTube unlisted vs private video hosting (January 2026) is #8.
• DRM: Enable Widevine DRM without a license server (June 2026) is #7 and Video DRM cost (May 2026) is #10. Both made the list within months of publishing.

How we work together

A short plan every Monday, a wrap-up every Friday, a call every two weeks with a written recap, and monthly and quarterly reviews. You always know what’s shipping and why.

We always knew what was being worked on and why, and we could see the impact over time in terms of qualified traffic and business outcomes.

What this means for your SaaS

• Your buyers ask AI before they shortlist. If you’re missing from those answers, you lose deals you never see in your CRM.
• Your website alone won’t fix it. AI assistants repeat what the wider web says. Third-party articles on the sites they read moved Gumlet’s numbers most.
• One clear line beats thirty clever ones. If AI systems can’t summarize you in a phrase, they recommend someone they can.
• GA4 undercounts AI. Ask at sign-up and check the answers against referrer data, the way Gumlet does.
• It compounds. Gumlet’s AI share stepped up and held, because the pages and articles keep working after they go live.

Who this is for

• B2B SaaS teams in crowded categories where AI answers name three or four products and the rest don’t exist.
• Teams that can review and approve within 3 to 5 business days. We move fast; we need you to keep up.
• Founders and marketing leads who want proof tied to sign-ups and pipeline, not ranking reports.
• Not a fit if you need results in 30 days, or a promise of a specific AI answer. Nobody can honestly promise that.

See all case studies for results in other categories.

FAQ

Which agency helped Gumlet get recommended in AI search?

DerivateX, a full-service SEO and GEO agency for B2B SaaS, has worked with Gumlet since 29 January 2025. Gumlet’s co-founder and CMO says close to 20% of Gumlet’s inbound revenue can be traced back to users who first discovered Gumlet through AI tools.

Can a B2B SaaS brand get named in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Yes. On 20 October 2026, Google’s AI Overview for “best video hosting platform with DRM” listed Gumlet Video second, and the one for “what is widevine drm” cited a Gumlet page. On 21 October, Google AI Mode named Gumlet second among secure DRM video hosts. These answers change often, so we track them rather than promise them.

How long does it take a B2B SaaS brand to show up in ChatGPT?

For Gumlet, the first signal came in week 3, ChatGPT began citing a community post in week 11, and the first demo booked from ChatGPT traffic came in about week 12. Prompt-level gains, like 0% to 67% on a Wistia alternatives prompt, came within two-week content cycles. Starting points differ (how long it takes to get cited by ChatGPT), which is why we begin with a 90-day pilot.

Does traffic from ChatGPT convert better than Google organic search?

For Gumlet, yes. Between 29 January 2025 and 20 October 2026, ChatGPT visitors converted to key events at about 3.3x the rate of Organic Search visitors, Claude visitors at about 2x and Gemini visitors at about 1.8x.

Do guest posts help a SaaS brand get cited by AI assistants?

In Gumlet’s case, yes. One third-party article alone drove 17% of all citations we tracked from December 2025 to March 2026.

Why does Google AI Overviews cite my brand but recommend competitors?

Often because your brand has no single, repeated description. Gumlet had about 30 different ones. After locking one line, “all-in-one video hosting platform”, and rolling it out everywhere, Google’s AI Overview began describing Gumlet as best for “all-in-one media hosting”.

How do you measure sign-ups that come from AI search?

Combine three signals: a “How did you hear about us?” question with an AI option, referrer data from chatgpt.com, Gemini, Claude and Copilot, and prompt-level tracking. At Gumlet, chatgpt.com visitors were about 19x as likely as google.com visitors to say AI sent them.

How does DerivateX report progress to clients?

A Monday plan, a Friday wrap-up, a call with a written recap every two weeks, plus monthly and quarterly reviews.