Indian American founder Kaushik Mahorker is launching Wildcard, an AI-powered platform that helps ecommerce brands improve their visibility across shopping assistants such as ChatGPT and Gemini. The public rollout, scheduled for next week, marks a new chapter for the San Francisco-based startup after it pivoted from its original AI agent API product launched in early 2025.
Mahorker told The American Bazaar that the startup’s original product is no longer part of its roadmap.
“Wildcard started as agents.json, a tool-calling protocol built through YC. Wildcard is no longer actively maintaining or working on that protocol, so treat that piece as history rather than where we are today. We relaunched in November 2025 as a completely different company focused on agentic commerce helping ecommerce brands get their products discovered and purchased through AI shopping assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini.”
He said the company is now building what it calls a command center for agentic commerce.
“What we’re launching now is the command center for agentic commerce, helping ecommerce brands get discovered and purchased through AI shopping assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini. This covers the full commerce stack: AI visibility and rank tracking, product data (PDP) optimization, content and PR outreach, and revenue attribution tied back to real orders. We’re currently working with 20+ brands, with a bigger public launch happening next week.”
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Wildcard describes itself as a full-stack Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) platform built specifically for ecommerce and retail brands. The platform evaluates how products appear across leading AI platforms, identifies visibility gaps, and provides recommendations and content support to help brands improve their presence in AI-generated shopping results.
Mahorker, who previously worked on ecommerce initiatives at Scale AI, said the company’s new direction emerged after seven months of conversations with brand owners. Those discussions reflected a growing shift in consumer behavior, with shoppers increasingly asking AI assistants what to buy instead of relying on traditional search engines.
Based on those findings, the company concluded that success in AI shopping depends less on training AI models and more on giving them trustworthy, well-structured product catalogs and high-quality supporting content that AI systems can easily discover through live searches.
Mahorker also believes most existing AI optimization tools were built for SaaS companies and fail to meet the needs of retailers managing large product catalogs with thousands of SKUs and variants.
To address those challenges, Wildcard follows a three-step process. The platform first audits a brand’s visibility across AI search platforms, then develops a tailored optimization roadmap before improving product catalogs and creating AI-friendly content designed to increase recommendations. According to the company, brands using the platform have seen revenue grow by as much as five times within about 30 days.
Today, Wildcard helps ecommerce brands, retailers, and agencies understand how their products appear across AI shopping assistants. The platform tracks AI visibility, monitors competitors, identifies the prompts that influence buying decisions, analyzes the sources AI systems rely on, and recommends actions that can improve product discovery.
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Unlike general AI visibility tools, Wildcard is designed specifically for ecommerce. It connects AI search performance with product pages, collection pages, blogs, structured data, product attributes, and other assets merchants can directly update, turning those insights into actionable workflows.
The company believes AI assistants are becoming a new shopping interface, gradually reducing consumers’ reliance on traditional search engines and paid advertising. As AI systems evolve from answering questions to researching products, comparing options, making recommendations, and completing purchases, Wildcard aims to provide the infrastructure brands need to compete in this changing landscape.
The platform currently offers AI visibility monitoring, prompt tracking, competitor analysis, optimization planning, and performance measurement. It also integrates with Shopify stores while supporting larger retailers, marketplaces, and agencies with AI visibility insights and optimization tools.
Looking ahead, Wildcard is preparing for the next phase of agentic commerce. As emerging standards such as ACP and UCP shape how AI agents discover products, exchange product information, and complete transactions, the company says it is building tools to help brands adapt to these new buying experiences while strengthening their presence across today’s AI shopping platforms.