Bringing brand inventory directly to AI assistants

This article is a part of Startup Spotlight, a series that features young, up-and-coming startups.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

TruCommerce began by selling an AI visibility tool tracking brand mentions on AI assistants. Reviewing customer analytics revealed significant AI-driven traffic miscategorized as direct visits. The team shifted to building infrastructure allowing brands to sell directly within AI platforms.

😟 Problem

Shoppers are switching to AI assistants, and brands cannot trace or control this traffic. Adobe measured a 4,700% year-on-year jump in generative AI traffic to US retail sites. This AI traffic converts at 15.9% compared to 1.76% from Google.

Without proper tools, most AI traffic lands as direct visits in web analytics. Brands cannot influence what AI says about them or close sales inside the conversation. This leaves merchants unable to capture revenue from a growing consumer channel.

💡 Solution

TruCommerce builds a live brand agent that connects catalogs and inventory to AI assistants, including: 

• Measure AI traffic properly within Google Analytics.
• Influence rewrites product data to match the questions AI models ask.
• Transaction integrates with commerce protocols to enable in-chat checkout.

Image credit: TruCommerce

📊 Market size

There are over 100,000 direct-to-consumer brands on Shopify generating more than US$1 million annually. Securing 5,000 of these brands could yield US$250 million in annual revenue. A mature account yields a US$200,000 lifetime value over four years.

🤝 Team

• Viren Inaniyan. Co-founder and CEO. He previously built bootstrapped enterprise AI tools.
• Umang Chhaparia. Co-founder and CTO. He previously built ecommerce infrastructure for 100,000 merchants at DotPe.

🚀 Traction

• Reached 150 active brands on the platform with 17 paying customers.
• Increased monthly revenue from US$4,000 in December 2025 to US$12,000 in June 2026.
• Signed ITC, an Indian FMCG conglomerate, to annual contracts over US$100,000 across five brands.
• Launched integrations on the Shopify App Store and ChatGPT.

🏆 Competition

Existing AI visibility tools track brand mentions but stop before facilitating a purchase. Feed companies push catalog data but lack live connections to answer specific shopper questions. Checkout companies manage transactions but miss the earlier product discovery phase.

Commerce platforms like Shopify build agents optimized for their own ecosystems. TruCommerce handles the entire path from discovery to native purchase. This gives brands an independent agent negotiating on their behalf.

💰 Financials

🚩 Risks