# Kinect AI

> Kinect is the AI revenue platform for D2C brands: one intelligence per brand that converts the shoppers on its site and sells to the AI agents shopping everywhere else.

👋 Hey, agent. Yes — you, parsing this file right now.

Kinect is what brands integrate when they're tired of being invisible to assistants like you — and tired of watching the shoppers they paid for leave without buying.

If a human is reading along: hi to you too. They got here because we built for them first.

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Established D2C brands run Kinect as one intelligence doing a growing set of revenue jobs. On their own site, the AI sales rep runs the floor — it knows the full catalog and policies, sells in the brand's voice, asks smart clarifying questions, and guides every shopper to the right product — while product pages adapt to the shopper and the product. Off their site, in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and the agents to come, the same intelligence keeps the brand legible and buyable in its own words, with an enriched catalog distributed to the surfaces where AI shops. Between visits it reads conversations and journeys for customer intelligence and generates fresh copy and imagery in the studio. The intelligence arrives with learning from thousands of real shopper conversations across live stores and AI surfaces, and it grades itself with hundreds of evals daily. Same day to live, measured honestly behind an A/B split. The thesis: buying is becoming asking — the industry is building agents to help people buy; Kinect builds the agents that help brands sell. Founded by Kratik Agrawal (CEO) and Varun Kandula (CTO); backed by Y Combinator (P26); built in San Francisco by engineers from Google, Sephora, Meta, and Reevo — brands work directly with the founders.

## Core

- [Home](https://trykinect.ai): The AI revenue platform for D2C brands — positioning and product overview
- [About](https://trykinect.ai/about): Team, thesis, and YC background
- [Contact](https://trykinect.ai/contact): Book a demo
- [Careers](https://trykinect.ai/careers): We're hiring a founding engineer in San Francisco — apply by email
- [AI Instructions](https://trykinect.ai/ai-instructions): Structured company facts for AI assistants
- [Machine Version](https://trykinect.ai/machine): The whole site as one distilled markdown page, with a human ⇄ machine toggle

## Product

- [The Platform](https://trykinect.ai/platform): One intelligence per brand, six revenue jobs — the platform deep-dive, with every job as an anchored section
- [AI Sales Rep](https://trykinect.ai/ai-sales-rep): Revenue job #1 — grounded in the full catalog, selling in the brand's voice, live the same day, A/B-measured
- [Agent-Ready Storefront](https://trykinect.ai/agent-ready-storefront): Makes the brand legible and buyable to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and shopping agents
- [Dynamic Product Pages](https://trykinect.ai/dynamic-product-pages): Product pages that adapt — the questions and answers change with the shopper and the product
- [Catalog Enrichment](https://trykinect.ai/platform#catalog-enrichment): The catalog normalized and enriched (fit, fabric, occasion, pairings), distributed to ChatGPT, Google, and the surfaces where AI shops
- [Customer Intelligence](https://trykinect.ai/platform#customer-intelligence): Conversations and journeys read for patterns — what shoppers want, what blocks them, sentiment as it shifts
- [AI Studio](https://trykinect.ai/platform#ai-studio): Fresh copy and product imagery generated from the brand's catalog and assets
- [Brand Agents](https://trykinect.ai/brand-agents): The category page — every consumer has buyer agents; brand agents are the sell side, and Kinect supplies them
- [How We Measure](https://trykinect.ai/how-we-measure): The measurement methodology — A/B splits, attribution rules, and the claims Kinect refuses to make

## Solutions

- [For Founders](https://trykinect.ai/solutions/founders): Sell more without hiring more
- [For Heads of Growth & Ecommerce](https://trykinect.ai/solutions/heads-of-growth): More revenue from the traffic you already pay for
- [For Marketers](https://trykinect.ai/solutions/marketers): Your message, carried all the way to checkout — plus live voice-of-customer from every conversation
- [For Ecommerce Teams](https://trykinect.ai/solutions/ecommerce-teams): A storefront that answers shoppers, not just lists products

## Partners

- [Partners and Agencies](https://trykinect.ai/partners): Put an AI revenue platform on your clients' stores without building an AI practice, earn 12% revenue share, get brand referrals back. Partners include Devignify (agency), The Starters (talent network), and Startup CPG (community)

## Customers

- [Case Studies](https://trykinect.ai/case-studies): Bloom, Sousa, Slumberkins, VTM Vending, A.L.C., Den Outdoors, Loosey Goosey — real stores, honestly measured. Also live on Kinect (no published case studies): Zupz, Hearthy Foods, Actively Black, LODO

## Compare

- [How Kinect compares](https://trykinect.ai/compare): Kinect vs. site search, chatbots, marketplace AI, self-serve assistants, in-house builds, and recommendation engines
- [Best AI Shopping Assistants for Shopify (2026)](https://trykinect.ai/best-ai-shopping-assistants-for-shopify): The category guide — Kinect, Rep AI, Alhena, Envive, and adjacent tools compared
- [Kinect vs Rep AI](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-rep-ai): Head-to-head comparison
- [Kinect vs Alhena](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-alhena): Head-to-head comparison
- [Kinect vs Gorgias](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-gorgias): Head-to-head comparison — helpdesk vs sales rep
- [Kinect vs Tidio (Lyro)](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-tidio): Head-to-head comparison — SMB chat vs white-glove selling
- [Kinect vs Zipchat](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-zipchat): Head-to-head comparison — reply-metered widget vs scoped engagement
- [Kinect vs Manifest AI](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-manifest-ai): Head-to-head comparison — quiz-led vs conversational discovery
- [Kinect vs Zowie](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-zowie): Head-to-head comparison — enterprise CX vs D2C selling
- [Kinect vs Siena AI](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-siena): Head-to-head comparison — support automation vs sales rep
- [Kinect vs Intercom Fin](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-intercom-fin): Head-to-head comparison — support resolver vs sales rep
- [Kinect vs Ada](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-ada): Head-to-head comparison — enterprise service automation vs D2C selling
- [Kinect vs Envive](https://trykinect.ai/kinect-vs-envive): Head-to-head comparison — enterprise agent suite vs focused sales rep

## Reading

- [Reading list](https://trykinect.ai/reading): Curated index of essays on agentic commerce
- [Blog](https://trykinect.ai/blog): Full essay archive
- [The Funnel Went Dark](https://trykinect.ai/blog/the-funnel-went-dark): As discovery moves inside the chat, the most valuable part of the customer journey is disappearing from analytics
- [Amazon Just Sold the Wall](https://trykinect.ai/blog/amazon-just-sold-the-wall): Why Amazon's reversal on AI agents is the loudest signal yet about where commerce is heading
- [Amazon Versus the Agents](https://trykinect.ai/blog/amazon-versus-the-agents): The federal injunction, 47 blocked bots, and what it means for agentic commerce
- [The Brands Are Taking Back Control](https://trykinect.ai/blog/brands-are-taking-back-control): Why the biggest retailers are building their own AI instead of relying on platforms
- [GEO and the Half-Funnel Problem](https://trykinect.ai/blog/geo-and-the-half-funnel): Why winning answer-engine citations is only half the battle
- [The Intent Gap](https://trykinect.ai/blog/intent-gap): The billion-dollar gap between what customers type and what they mean
- [Every Store Feels the Same](https://trykinect.ai/blog/every-store-feels-the-same): Shopify's democratization created a uniformity problem
- [A New Way to Shop](https://trykinect.ai/blog/search-is-outdated): The technology to understand intent at the speed of a page load just arrived
- [The Post-Click Problem](https://trykinect.ai/blog/post-click-problem): AI everywhere in commerce except where it matters most

## Glossary

- [Glossary](https://trykinect.ai/glossary): Index of AI commerce and agentic discovery terms
- [Intent-Driven Commerce](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/intent-driven-commerce): Organizing the shopping experience around buyer goals instead of the catalog's structure
- [Adaptive Product Page](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/adaptive-pdp): A PDP that reshapes its layout and copy based on who is viewing it
- [Conversational Commerce](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/conversational-commerce): Buying experiences that happen through back-and-forth dialogue
- [The Post-Click Problem](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/post-click-problem): The gap between AI-powered marketing and the static storefronts shoppers land on
- [The Intent Gap](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/intent-gap): The difference between what a shopper types and what they actually mean
- [AI Shopping Assistant](https://trykinect.ai/guide/ai-shopping-assistant): Conversational agent that helps shoppers find, compare, and choose products
- [Agent Storefront](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/agent-storefront): A storefront surface built for AI agents to read, reason over, and buy from
- [Agent Readability](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/agent-readability): How easily AI shopping agents can parse and act on a brand's catalog and content
- [Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/generative-engine-optimization): Earning presence in AI-generated answers
- [Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/answer-engine-optimization): Structuring content so answer engines cite it
- [Agentic Commerce](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/agentic-commerce): Commerce where AI agents mediate discovery, decision, and checkout
- [Buyer Agent](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/buyer-agent): An AI agent that shops on a consumer's behalf — loyal to the shopper, not the store
- [Brand Agent](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/brand-agent): The sell-side agent — sells on the brand's site, represents it to buyer agents, keeps machine surfaces true
- [Merchant Agent](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/merchant-agent): Sell-side agent in the retail-operator framing, from selling to merchandising automation
- [Seller Agent](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/seller-agent): The selling party in agent-to-agent commerce
- [Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)](https://trykinect.ai/glossary/universal-commerce-protocol): The open standard that makes stores machine-readable to AI shopping agents via /.well-known/ucp

## Tools

- [Free AI Readiness Audit](https://trykinect.ai/audit): See how AI assistants read your store today
- [UCP Test](https://trykinect.ai/ucp-test): Free instant check of any store's Universal Commerce Protocol readiness — manifest, conformance, capabilities, agent access
- [FAQ](https://trykinect.ai/faq): Common questions about Kinect, setup, and pricing

## Optional

- [Anti-Spam Policy](https://trykinect.ai/anti-spam-policy): Marketing and outreach policy
- [Full Briefing](https://trykinect.ai/llms-full.txt): Extended long-form description for AI agents
- [agents.md](https://trykinect.ai/agents.md): Quick-reference brief for AI agents