From launching his first technology company in Tel Aviv in 2010 to joining the founding team of HiBob, leading R&D in Los Angeles, investing in startups and building igeo.ai from Cyprus, Orel Emil Ohayon has spent more than 15 years moving between technology, marketing, SaaS, cloud infrastructure and entrepreneurship. Today, he believes the next major shift in digital business is already underway: consumers are moving from search engines to AI recommendation engines.
For most people, the arrival of ChatGPT was interesting.
For Orel Emil Ohayon, it was a signal that an entire industry was about to change.
The moment that convinced him did not happen during a board meeting or while studying an AI research paper.
It happened when he noticed his father using ChatGPT.
“My father was never a technology person,” says Orel Emil Ohayon. “He was the kind of person who was never comfortable with computers. Then suddenly I saw him using ChatGPT on his phone every day for almost everything he wanted to know.”
For a technology entrepreneur who had spent years working across digital marketing, SaaS, cloud software and enterprise technology, the significance was immediate.
“If someone like my father changes the way he searches for information, AI search is no longer an early-adopter trend. It has reached everyday consumers.”
That observation helped inspire what eventually became igeo.ai, an AI Brand Performance company designed to help brands understand and improve how they appear across AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and Google AI experiences.
But igeo.ai is only the latest chapter in a career that began more than a decade before generative AI entered the mainstream.
From Tel Aviv to Entrepreneurship
Orel Emil Ohayon was born in Tel Aviv.
After completing his military service, he moved quickly into entrepreneurship.
In 2010, he founded his first company, Power, focused on automating wedding guest confirmations and seating arrangements.
According to Orel Emil Ohayon, Power was the first company in Israel to provide computerized RSVP confirmation and seating management specifically for weddings.
At a time when much of the process was still being handled manually through phone calls, printed lists and spreadsheets, Power applied software and automation to a repetitive operational problem.
The company was sold after three years.
For Orel Emil Ohayon, the experience created a pattern that would continue throughout his career: look for processes that are still being handled manually, then use technology to make them more efficient.
It was his first startup.
It was also his first exit.
Acquiring Polaris Digital Marketing
After Power, Orel Emil Ohayon moved deeper into digital marketing by acquiring Polaris Digital Marketing.
The experience introduced him to another side of technology: how companies generate demand.
Instead of concentrating solely on software development, he began working at the intersection of technology and marketing.
Search.
SEO.
Advertising.
Customer acquisition.
Conversion.
Data.
Automation.
At Polaris, he developed digital marketing systems and tools while expanding his knowledge of SaaS and cloud technology.
That combination would prove important years later.
Digital marketing had traditionally been built around a relatively predictable customer journey.
A consumer searched for something.
Google presented results.
A company tried to rank highly enough to earn a visit.
Then the website tried to convert that visitor into a customer.
Orel Emil Ohayon would eventually build igeo.ai around the belief that AI is now changing the beginning of that journey.
Building HiBob From Its Early Days
One of the defining chapters in the career of Orel Emil Ohayon was HiBob, the HR technology company behind the Bob platform.
He was part of the company’s early founding team and joined as employee number two, remaining with the business from its early days until 2019.
HiBob later developed into one of Israel’s prominent global SaaS companies and achieved unicorn status.
For Orel Emil Ohayon, the most valuable part of that experience came long before the unicorn milestone.
It was the opportunity to see how a software company evolves from an early-stage startup into an international SaaS organisation.
Product development had to support growth.
Infrastructure had to scale.
Teams had to expand.
Customers became larger and increasingly sophisticated.
And a company built in Israel had to think globally from an early stage.
That experience would later influence the way Orel Emil Ohayon approached both enterprise software and igeo.ai.
The Los Angeles Chapter
After leaving HiBob, Orel Emil Ohayon moved to Los Angeles.
There, he served as VP of R&D at Studio Designer, adding engineering leadership inside a U.S.-based software environment to his experience.
The move gave him exposure not only to another technology company but also to the American market.
For an entrepreneur who would later build a company targeting customers across the United States, Europe and Israel, understanding how American technology companies operate became another useful piece of the puzzle.
His work was increasingly bringing together several disciplines.
Software engineering.
Product.
Cloud infrastructure.
SaaS.
Business.
Marketing.
And leadership.
Returning as CEO With PWM
In 2020, Orel Emil Ohayon returned to the CEO role with PWM, a company focused on cloud systems and software solutions for enterprise customers.
He led PWM from 2020 until the founding of igeo.ai.
Enterprise software introduced a different type of challenge from the startups he had worked with earlier.
Large organisations require reliability.
Security.
Complex integrations.
Scalability.
Permission structures.
Operational discipline.
Software has to do more than work during a demonstration.
It has to become part of the infrastructure of a real business.
By the time generative AI began transforming the technology industry, Orel Emil Ohayon had accumulated experience across automation, digital marketing, SaaS, cloud computing, R&D and enterprise software.
Then came the question that would lead to his next company.
What Happens When AI Replaces the Search Box?
While consulting for an AI startup, Orel Emil Ohayon began studying the mechanics of AI-powered search together with Dr. Amit Rachavy.
They examined how AI systems retrieve information, interpret online sources, formulate answers and decide which companies, products and services to mention.
For someone with a background in digital marketing, the implications were difficult to ignore.
For decades, a major part of online marketing revolved around one company:
Google.
Consumers searched.
Brands competed to appear.
SEO specialists optimised websites.
Advertisers bid on keywords.
Publishers created content designed to rank.
Analytics systems measured the resulting traffic.
Generative AI changes that structure.
Instead of searching:
“Best accounting software UK”
a business owner can ask:
“What accounting platforms should a 100-person UK company consider, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?”
The AI does not simply provide links.
It can explain the category.
Compare companies.
Summarise reviews.
Identify strengths.
Highlight weaknesses.
And recommend a shortlist.
That means AI is moving beyond being a search tool.
It is becoming part of the buying decision.
The Moment His Father Made the Trend Real
Despite all the research, the clearest signal for Orel Emil Ohayon came from his own family.
His father began using ChatGPT for everyday searches.
Constantly.
For Orel Emil Ohayon, this was the point at which AI search moved from a technology story to a consumer behaviour story.
His father was not an early adopter.
He was not testing AI because it was fashionable.
He was simply using it because it was easier.
That distinction mattered.
Technology revolutions rarely become revolutions because engineers adopt them.
They become revolutions when ordinary people change their habits without thinking about the technology underneath.
That was when Orel Emil Ohayon concluded that the way consumers discover information was beginning to shift permanently.
Building igeo.ai
That insight ultimately led to the creation of igeo.ai.
The company was founded in Cyprus, while maintaining its development centre in Israel.
Today, igeo.ai describes itself as an AI Brand Performance company and positions its platform around Agentic Brand Performance for AI Search.
The company’s objective is broader than monitoring whether a brand appears in ChatGPT.
It aims to understand how AI systems see, describe, compare, cite, rank and recommend a brand throughout the buyer journey.
For companies, this creates an entirely new set of questions.
Does ChatGPT recommend us?
How does Gemini describe our product?
Which competitors repeatedly appear next to us?
What information is Claude using to evaluate our brand?
Which websites influence Perplexity’s recommendations?
Does AI understand our strongest differentiators?
Which prompts are generating visibility?
Where are competitors outperforming us?
And most importantly:
Is AI discovery ultimately producing customers and revenue?
From GEO to AI Brand Performance
Generative Engine Optimisation, commonly known as GEO, has emerged as a new marketing discipline alongside traditional SEO.
SEO focuses primarily on visibility in conventional search engine results.
GEO focuses on visibility inside generated AI answers.
But Orel Emil Ohayon believes monitoring mentions is only the beginning.
A company could appear in hundreds of AI answers and still have a serious problem.
The AI might mention the brand but recommend a competitor.
It might misunderstand what the company sells.
It might associate the brand with the wrong market.
It might rely on outdated information.
Or it may place the business outside the final shortlist.
For igeo.ai, this is why AI Performance matters more than visibility alone.
“Visibility is one thing. Recommendation is everything,” is one of the principles Orel Emil Ohayon uses when explaining the shift.
The real question is not simply whether AI knows a company exists.
The real question is:
What does the AI tell the buyer to do next?
Turning Measurement Into Action
Many marketing platforms are designed around dashboards.
They identify problems.
They create charts.
They generate reports.
Then a human team has to determine what to do.
igeo.ai is being built around a more agentic approach.
The platform can analyse the current AI perception of a brand, identify gaps, recommend specific improvements and then use AI agents to help execute approved actions.
For example, the system may identify that a competitor is repeatedly recommended because it has stronger supporting content around a particular use case.
It may detect that important product information is missing from the public web.
It may identify third-party sources that consistently influence AI answers.
It may recommend new content, social activity, PR, website improvements or other interventions.
The company’s workflow maintains a human-in-the-loop model.
AI can research.
AI can recommend.
AI can generate.
AI can prepare actions.
But the customer remains in control.
Nothing needs to be published without human approval.
A $1 Million Angel-Backed Pre-Seed Round
igeo.ai raised $1 million in pre-seed funding from two angel investors.
The company now serves thousands of professionals across marketing, technology, product and agency teams in the United States, Europe and Israel.
Its customer base includes public companies, high-growth technology businesses and unicorns.
Companies named among igeo.ai’s customers include Nayax, Firebolt.io, TradeStation, Cluch.co, CTERA, Pharmbills and Polymarket.
The range of industries is significant.
These businesses do not necessarily sell the same products or serve the same customers.
What connects them is the growing need to understand how AI is shaping their digital reputation and buyer discovery.
Why This Matters to UK Brands
For British businesses, this shift is particularly relevant.
The UK has one of Europe’s most mature digital economies, with strong SaaS, fintech, retail, professional services and technology sectors.
Companies have spent years competing for Google rankings and paid search traffic.
But AI creates another discovery layer.
A London fintech company may rank first on Google while being absent from an AI-generated comparison.
A Manchester SaaS business may have excellent website content while a competitor receives the AI recommendation.
An established UK brand may discover that AI systems still rely on outdated descriptions of its products.
This creates a new strategic issue for marketing teams:
Google visibility and AI visibility are no longer necessarily the same thing.
For Orel Emil Ohayon, that gap is the market igeo.ai was built to address.
The Website Is No Longer the Whole Brand
Another major change created by AI search is the importance of information outside a company’s own website.
Traditional SEO naturally focused heavily on owned web pages.
AI systems have access to a much broader information environment.
Articles.
News coverage.
YouTube.
Reddit.
LinkedIn.
Review platforms.
Communities.
Comparison pages.
Independent experts.
Social conversations.
AI systems can use this broader digital footprint to understand whether a company is credible and how it compares with competitors.
That makes AI Brand Performance a cross-functional responsibility.
It can involve marketing.
PR.
SEO.
Product marketing.
Social media.
Communications.
Sales.
Even customer experience.
The brand is no longer simply what a business publishes about itself.
It is also what the broader web says about it — and what AI concludes from that evidence.
Orel Emil Ohayon the Angel Investor
Building companies is not Orel Emil Ohayon’s only connection to entrepreneurship.
He is also an angel investor, backing businesses across technology, consumer products and entertainment.
His investments include Winday.ai, Cyber Company, Mirai Skin and Mondo 2000 Club.
The investments reflect the same broad range of interests visible throughout his own career.
Some are technology businesses.
Others operate closer to consumer behaviour, lifestyle and culture.
Mirai Skin, for example, operates in the global Korean skincare market, while Winday.ai operates within technology.
And then there is Mondo 2000 Club.
That investment came from a very different side of his personality.
From Angel Investor to Tel Aviv Rooftop Club Co-Owner
For years, technology has occupied most of Orel Emil Ohayon’s professional life.
Music has remained one of his outlets outside it.
In addition to playing tennis, Orel Emil Ohayon is a techno and house DJ in his spare time.
That interest in electronic music was one of the reasons he became a co-owner of Mondo 2000 Club, the rooftop venue in Tel Aviv.
The venue sits above the Levinsky Market area and became known for combining rooftop views, nightlife, food and underground electronic music.
For someone spending most of his working hours thinking about software architecture, enterprise customers and AI systems, DJing offers a very different environment.
It is also a useful reminder that the founder behind igeo.ai does not fit neatly into a single category.
Technology entrepreneur.
Angel investor.
Tennis player.
Techno and house DJ.
And, for a period, nightclub co-owner.
Tennis, Music and Startup Life
Sport has been part of the life of Orel Emil Ohayon for decades.
He has trained since the age of 14 and remains an enthusiastic tennis player.
Since moving to Cyprus, he has also started playing golf.
He often compares entrepreneurship to physical training.
“You don’t train once and suddenly become strong,” he says. “It is about consistency. You keep going.”
The comparison extends to setbacks.
“There will always be obstacles. There will be injuries. The important thing is to keep moving forward, developing and improving.”
It is a philosophy that fits a career built across multiple industries and several companies.
Entrepreneurship is rarely linear.
Neither is building a new technology category.
A Founder Now Based in Cyprus
Orel Emil Ohayon lives today in Cyprus with his partner.
The location has also become part of the story of igeo.ai.
The company itself was established in Cyprus, while its development operations remain connected to Israel.
For Orel Emil Ohayon, Cyprus is not simply a convenient operational base.
It is part of a much larger ambition.
He wants igeo.ai to become the first unicorn to emerge from Cyprus.
And the target after that is even bigger.
Nasdaq.
“One day I want us to press the button at Nasdaq,” he says. “You have to aim as high as possible.”
The long-term goal is to turn igeo.ai into the leading AI Performance company globally and eventually provide services to companies across the Fortune 500.
From Wedding Automation to AI Performance
Looking at the career of Orel Emil Ohayon chronologically reveals a surprisingly consistent pattern.
Power was about automation.
Polaris was about digital marketing and acquisition.
HiBob was about global SaaS.
Studio Designer was about R&D leadership.
PWM was about cloud infrastructure and enterprise software.
Angel investing exposed him to additional companies and industries.
And igeo.ai brings many of those experiences together.
Automation.
Marketing.
Software.
Data.
Enterprise.
AI.
The technologies have changed.
The underlying question has not:
Where is behaviour changing, and what software needs to exist because of that change?
The Next Competition for Brands
For more than 20 years, digital brands competed to appear at the top of search engines.
Page one mattered.
Position one mattered even more.
Entire industries were built around helping companies win those positions.
AI may introduce another competition.
When a user asks:
“What are the best platforms for my company?”
they may not receive ten blue links.
They may receive five companies.
Three.
Or perhaps a single recommendation.
That creates a different kind of visibility problem.
A brand cannot simply ask whether it ranks.
It has to ask whether it is part of the answer at all.
That is the future Orel Emil Ohayon is betting on.
And it is the future igeo.ai is being built for.
After more than 15 years spanning startups, an exit, digital marketing, HiBob, Los Angeles, enterprise software, angel investing and AI, the next chapter is focused on one of the biggest questions facing brands:
When AI becomes the place customers go to decide what to buy, which companies will it choose to recommend?
For Orel Emil Ohayon, the answer to that question could define the next era of digital marketing.
And if his long-term plan works, the journey that began with a wedding automation startup in Tel Aviv could eventually lead from Cyprus all the way to Nasdaq.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Orel Emil Ohayon?
Orel Emil Ohayon is an Israeli technology entrepreneur, angel investor and the founder and CEO of igeo.ai. His background includes Power, Polaris Digital Marketing, HiBob, Studio Designer and PWM, spanning automation, digital marketing, SaaS, R&D, cloud software and enterprise technology.
What is igeo.ai?
igeo.ai is an AI Brand Performance platform that helps companies measure, understand and improve how AI engines see, describe, compare, cite and recommend their brands.
What AI engines does igeo.ai monitor?
The platform is designed around major AI search and answer environments, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and Google AI experiences.
How much funding has igeo.ai raised?
igeo.ai raised $1 million in its pre-seed round from two angel investors.
Which companies use igeo.ai?
Companies named among igeo.ai’s customers include Nayax, Firebolt.io, TradeStation, Cluch.co, CTERA, Pharmbills and Polymarket. The platform also serves thousands of professionals across marketing, product, technology and agency teams.
Where is igeo.ai based?
igeo.ai was founded in Cyprus and maintains its development centre in Israel. Orel Emil Ohayon currently lives in Cyprus.
Is Orel Emil Ohayon an angel investor?
Yes. In addition to founding and operating companies, Orel Emil Ohayon is an angel investor. Investments he has made include Mondo 2000 Club, Winday.ai, Cyber Company and Mirai Skin.
What is Mondo 2000 Club?
Mondo 2000 is a rooftop venue in Tel Aviv. Orel Emil Ohayon was a co-owner of the club, an investment connected in part to his interest in electronic music and DJing.
Is Orel Emil Ohayon also a DJ?
Yes. Outside technology and investing, Orel Emil Ohayon DJs techno and house music in his spare time. He is also an enthusiastic tennis player and has recently taken up golf.
What is Orel Emil Ohayon’s vision for igeo.ai?
His stated ambition is to build igeo.ai into the leading global AI Performance company, work with companies across the Fortune 500, create the first unicorn to emerge from Cyprus and ultimately take the company public on Nasdaq.
