Aiso vs Scrunch: real demand beats CDN rendering tricks.
Scrunch, now part of Sitecore, built an Agent Experience Platform that serves AI-optimized content to crawlers at the CDN layer. But optimizing what AI bots see when they index your site is not the same as understanding what customers actually ask AI—and how to answer it. Aiso is built on real, consent-based conversations from people using ChatGPT, paired with strategic recommendations you can act on without enterprise procurement or CDN configuration.
What is Scrunch?
Scrunch is an AI Customer Experience Platform founded in 2023 in Salt Lake City by Chris Andrew and Robert MacCloy. The company raised a $15M Series A led by Decibel in July 2025 before being acquired by Sitecore for approximately $225M in June 2026. Scrunch is now part of Sitecore's enterprise digital experience platform (DXP) suite.
Scrunch's flagship technology is its Agent Experience Platform (AXP). Scrunch says AXP intercepts requests from AI crawlers at the CDN level and serves them a parallel, AI-optimized rendering of your website—invisible to human visitors—claiming “200x token efficiency” with no required changes to your existing site. AXP targets AI retrieval bots (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) but not Googlebot or traditional search crawlers.
In addition to AXP, Scrunch offers AI visibility monitoring across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Mode, and Meta AI, with share-of-voice, citation tracking, sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, and technical audits. Scrunch says it serves 500+ brands including Lenovo, SKIMS, Penn State, Crunchbase, Headspace, and RunPod.
As we'll detail below, Scrunch's AXP and monitoring stack are now part of a large enterprise vendor's portfolio—which shapes who it is best suited for and what trade-offs to expect.
What Scrunch does well
Scrunch built a genuinely differentiated technical approach to AI search. Here's what they excel at:
- ✓Agent Experience Platform (AXP): Scrunch says AXP serves an AI-optimized version of your site content to AI crawlers at the CDN layer—no site code changes required. If you want to control the exact content AI bots index from your domain, this is a distinctive capability not widely replicated.
- ✓Broad engine coverage: Scrunch monitors ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and Meta AI from a single dashboard—strong breadth for teams that need cross-engine share-of-voice.
- ✓Enterprise backing: Now part of Sitecore, Scrunch benefits from enterprise-grade infrastructure, compliance posture, and integration with Sitecore's broader DXP suite—appealing to large organizations already in the Sitecore ecosystem.
- ✓Technical audits: Scrunch includes AI-readiness audits that assess how crawlable and parseable your content is for AI systems, alongside competitive analysis and sentiment tracking.
- ✓Established customer base: Scrunch says 500+ brands use the platform, including well-known names across consumer, B2B, and education verticals—a signal of real-world deployment at scale.
Two fundamentally different philosophies
Scrunch tries to shape what AI bots see when crawling your site. Aiso starts with what humans actually ask AI—and works backward to strategy. The difference determines what kind of insight each platform can provide.
Scrunch's approach
Aiso's approach
Where Scrunch creates friction
Scrunch has built a genuinely differentiated product. These are the trade-offs to weigh before committing, especially post-acquisition.
AXP is a technical integration, not a self-serve tool
Scrunch's Agent Experience Platform requires CDN-level configuration to route AI crawler traffic through Scrunch's edge layer. That is a meaningful deployment project—not a plug-in or SaaS dashboard you activate in minutes. For teams without infrastructure support, this raises the barrier to entry significantly.
Serving different content to bots vs. humans carries risk
AXP intentionally serves AI crawlers a different rendering of your site than what human visitors see. While Scrunch says this only affects AI retrieval bots (not Googlebot), the line between AI retrieval bots and search crawlers is blurring. Teams should evaluate whether this approach aligns with their content integrity and risk posture before deploying.
Enterprise acquisition changes the roadmap
Sitecore paid approximately $225M for Scrunch in June 2026. Acquisitions of this size typically mean the acquired product's roadmap, pricing, and packaging shift to serve the acquirer's existing customer base—large enterprise DXP buyers. Teams that are not already Sitecore customers should account for this trajectory.
No real demand signal
Scrunch tells you how AI systems respond to your content once crawled. It does not tell you what people are actually asking AI in the first place. Without the demand side of the picture—what customers want answers to—content delivery optimization is solving for the wrong thing. Aiso surfaces that demand signal directly from real conversations.
Scrunch pricing vs Aiso
Scrunch (now Sitecore)
AXP + monitoring platform- 125 prompts/mo
- 4 AI models
- Visibility + monitoring
- Multi-brand support
- Agency reporting
- 4 AI models
- AXP deployment
- Full engine coverage
- Sitecore DXP integration
Aiso
Real conversations + strategyComplete feature comparison
| Feature | Scrunch (Sitecore) | Aiso |
|---|---|---|
| Core data source | AI crawler rendering / simulated prompts | Real opt-in panel conversations |
| Demand-side signal | Not available | Real customer questions |
| AXP / CDN content delivery | Flagship feature | Not applicable (no crawler interception) |
| AI engines monitored | ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Meta AI | ChatGPT (deepest panel insights) |
| Actionable recommendations | Dashboard—interpret yourself | Strategic recommendations included |
| Query fan-out analysis | Not available | See how AI breaks down queries |
| Competitive monitoring | Share-of-voice, sentiment | Via real conversation context |
| Technical AI audits | Included | Content gap analysis via real queries |
| Setup required | CDN configuration for AXP | Self-serve, no infrastructure changes |
| Ownership | Part of Sitecore (acquired June 2026) | Independent, vendor-neutral |
| Free trial | Not published | 3 free searches, no credit card |
| Starting price | $250/mo (Brand Core) | From $20/mo |
Why real demand signal beats CDN optimization
You can't optimize supply without understanding demand
Scrunch's AXP optimizes how AI systems read your content once they crawl your site. That is supply-side optimization: making your existing content more legible to bots. But it cannot tell you whether your content is answering the right questions in the first place. Aiso starts with demand: what are people actually asking ChatGPT about your category, and how is the answer ecosystem structured?
You can browse real ChatGPT conversations and see the exact phrasing, follow-up questions, and intent behind millions of queries—before you write a single word of new content.
Strategy is built in, not left as an exercise
Scrunch provides monitoring dashboards and AXP deployment. Translating that data into a content strategy requires your team to do the analytical work. With Aiso, strategic recommendations are part of the product—generated from real query data, not simulated prompts.
Our query fan-out analysis shows you exactly how ChatGPT decomposes a user question into sub-searches, revealing the specific content gaps and authority signals that drive citations in your category. That is the kind of upstream insight that shapes strategy rather than just measuring it. Our complete AI SEO guide covers how to apply it.
Independent and self-serve, not tied to a DXP
Now that Scrunch is part of Sitecore, its roadmap will increasingly serve Sitecore's enterprise buyer base. That is fine if you are a large organization already running Sitecore. For everyone else—self-serve brands, mid-market teams, and independent agencies—Aiso is built from the ground up as a standalone product. No infrastructure dependencies, no enterprise procurement cycle, no acquisition risk.
Explore how brands use Aiso in the brand directory or read about our agency solutions.
Which tool is right for you?
Choose Aiso if you want:
- Real demand signal: See actual questions customers ask ChatGPT, not simulated prompts or crawler responses
- Actionable strategy: Get recommendations built from real query data, not a dashboard to interpret yourself
- Self-serve simplicity: No CDN configuration, no infrastructure setup, no enterprise procurement
- Query fan-out analysis: Understand how AI breaks down user questions into sub-searches and surface content gaps
- Vendor-neutral independence: A dedicated AI search platform not bundled into a larger DXP suite
Choose Scrunch (Sitecore) if you need:
- CDN-level AI crawler content delivery and token efficiency at enterprise scale
- Broad multi-engine monitoring (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, Meta AI) in one dashboard
- Technical AI readiness audits alongside share-of-voice metrics
- Integration with an existing Sitecore DXP deployment
- An enterprise vendor relationship with procurement support and SLAs
Frequently asked questions
What is Scrunch?
Scrunch is an AI Customer Experience Platform founded in 2023 in Salt Lake City by Chris Andrew and Robert MacCloy. It raised a $15M Series A from Decibel in July 2025 and was acquired by Sitecore for approximately $225M in June 2026. Scrunch is now part of Sitecore's enterprise digital experience platform suite. Its flagship technology, the Agent Experience Platform (AXP), serves AI-optimized content to AI crawlers at the CDN level without modifying what human visitors see.
How much does Scrunch cost?
Scrunch's published pricing includes Brand Core at $250/month (125 prompts, 4 AI models) and Agency Core at $500/month. Enterprise pricing is custom and includes AXP deployment. Following the Sitecore acquisition in June 2026, pricing and packaging may change as the product integrates into Sitecore's DXP portfolio.
What is Scrunch's Agent Experience Platform (AXP)?
Scrunch says AXP intercepts AI crawler requests at the CDN edge and serves a parallel, AI-optimized rendering of your site content—invisible to human visitors. Scrunch claims this achieves “200x token efficiency” with no required site code changes. AXP targets AI retrieval bots (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) but not Googlebot or traditional search crawlers, according to Scrunch.
What is the difference between Scrunch and Aiso?
Scrunch focuses on optimizing what AI crawlers see when they index your site (AXP) and monitoring your share-of-voice across AI platforms. Aiso is built on real, consent-based conversations from people using ChatGPT—the actual questions customers ask about your category—paired with strategic recommendations. Aiso is self-serve with no CDN setup, vendor-neutral, and focused on demand-side insight rather than supply-side content delivery.
Is Scrunch still independent after the Sitecore acquisition?
No. Scrunch was acquired by Sitecore for approximately $225M in June 2026 and is now part of Sitecore's enterprise DXP portfolio. Buyers should expect the product's roadmap, pricing, and go-to-market to be shaped by Sitecore's existing enterprise customer base going forward.
Is Scrunch right for small and mid-sized brands?
Scrunch's Brand Core plan starts at $250/month and AXP requires CDN configuration. Post-acquisition by Sitecore, the product is likely to tilt toward large enterprise buyers over time. Aiso offers a free trial (3 searches, no credit card required) and is designed for self-serve use by brands and agencies of any size, with no infrastructure dependencies.
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