Media Strategy, Ad Tech, and the Future of Search with Michael Walrath (Chairman and CEO at Yext)

Listen to the Podcast

In this episode of The Long Game Podcast, David Ly Khim interviews Michael Walrath, CEO and Chairman of Yext. Known for building and exiting multiple companies—including RightMedia and Moat—Michael shares how Yext evolved from a local lead-gen platform to a digital presence powerhouse. He dives deep into the fragmentation of search, the shift toward generative engines, and the rise of “agentic” AI-powered experiences. With candid reflections on strategy pivots and digital transformation, Michael urges marketers to rethink discoverability, measurement, and structured content in an era where your next customer might not be human, but an AI assistant making decisions on their behalf.

Key Takeaways

• Yext’s Strategic Pivots: The company evolved from call-based lead gen to local visibility, to enterprise search—each requiring bold but risky reinvention.
• Google Dominance Has Peaked: With 92%+ of search traffic once flowing through Google, that landscape is now fragmenting due to LLMs and AI agents.
• Structured Data Drives Discovery: Clean, contextualized data remains a marketer’s best lever for visibility—whether on Google or in LLM-powered engines.
• Brand Visibility Beats SEO Rankings: As AI agents answer more queries, brands must optimize for visibility across platforms, not just search engine results pages.
• The Agentic Web Is Coming: AI assistants with memory and context will handle more decision-making—marketers must build for both humans and machines.
• AI Shifts Are Already Here: Yext observed traffic shifts 6+ quarters ago—marketers should act now, not wait, to influence AI results.
• Reframing Attribution: Zero-click answers and agentic transactions require a shift from traditional web metrics to outcome-focused measurement.

Show Links

• Visit Yext on Linkedin and X
• Connect with Michael Walrath on LinkedIn  
• Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter

Time stamps

• [00:00] Intro to Michael Walrath and Yext’s history
• [05:10] Yext’s pivots: From lead-gen to visibility to enterprise search
• [13:25] The challenge of over-pivoting in public companies
• [19:15] Google’s local search dominance—and its decline
• [24:40] The rise of AI answers and the erosion of impression tracking
• [29:55] GEO, AEO, LLMO—what they mean and why they’re tricky
• [36:30] Why marketers must rethink attribution in the AI era
• [41:50] Building structured data pipelines for AI engines
• [47:05] From SERP optimization to visibility engineering
• [51:40] What is the “agentic web” and how to build for it
• [58:10] Designing websites for humans vs. feeding structured data to bots
• [01:03:45] Predictions: APIs, indexing models, and the evolving web