[SaaS & AI Series] Future-Proofing Your Marketing With Jason Patel

Jason Patel is the Co-founder and CEO of Open Forge AI, a B2B SaaS company that helps businesses expand their visibility across AI-driven search and answer engines. Before this, he built and successfully exited Transizion, an edtech company providing personalized career and college guidance. At Open Forge AI, Jason leads strategy and product development, leveraging his expertise in technology and marketing. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political communication from The George Washington University.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[4:05] Jason Patel explains how Open Forge AI helps companies rank higher in AI-driven search engines
[8:10] Why Jason founded Open Forge AI to help American entrepreneurs thrive in the AI era
[12:57] How Jason’s journey from politics to entrepreneurship led to building Transizion and Open Forge AI
[18:14] The evolution of Open Forge AI’s platform and its powerful AI agents — Orion, Caesar, and Helix
[21:20] Common mistakes preventing businesses from getting indexed by AI search engines
[27:11] Real-world success stories of companies boosting AI visibility through Open Forge AI
[32:40] Jason’s favorite AI tools for marketing, automation, and business growth

In this episode…

The marketing landscape is evolving faster than ever, driven by the rapid integration of AI into search and discovery. Traditional SEO strategies that once guaranteed visibility are losing traction as generative AI reshapes how consumers find products, services, and brands. So how can businesses ensure they’re not left behind in this new digital frontier?

Drawing from his experience building AI-powered marketing tools, Jason Patel emphasizes that visibility in the age of ChatGPT requires more than traditional SEO tactics. He highlights how AI technologies are changing the rules of discoverability — brands must now optimize for ChatGPT and other AI systems, not just Google. By building tools that make websites machine-readable, automating content creation, and improving third-party citations, he’s helping businesses future-proof their marketing strategies for a world where AI agents decide what gets seen. His approach bridges technical precision with strategic insight, giving companies the edge they need to stay competitive.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Jason Patel, Co-founder and CEO of Open Forge AI, to discuss how AI is transforming marketing visibility. They explore what GEO means for modern businesses, how AI agents are reshaping content strategy, and why technical optimization is vital for AI readiness. Jason also shares practical tips for entrepreneurs looking to leverage AI as a growth amplifier rather than a threat.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Special mention:

Lucas Jones on LinkedIn

Related episodes:

Quotable moments:

“I want to help American businesses adapt and thrive in this new age of AI.”
“Change is scary, but change can be exciting because it provides a lot of new opportunities.”
“Think of AI as you hire a team of Navy Seals, not necessarily a whole military.”
“AI, don’t view it as an obstacle. View it as an opportunity.”
“You got to be fast, you got to be agile, and you can get a lot of easy wins off of AI search right now.”

Action steps:

Audit your website for AI readiness: Ensure your site is well-structured and machine-readable so AI search engines can accurately understand and surface your content.
Shift content strategy to focus on mid- and bottom-funnel topics: Create specific, comparison-oriented content that demonstrates expertise and stands out in AI-generated summaries.
Leverage third-party citations and industry-specific reviews: Secure credible external mentions to strengthen trust signals favored by AI-driven search rankings.
Automate content creation and strategic analysis with AI tools: Use AI platforms to streamline research, planning, and execution so you can scale efficiently with fewer resources.
Monitor and adapt to geo-targeted search performance: Track how your business appears in local AI search results and adjust content to capture opportunities in specific markets.

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Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Jason Patel. You can check him out at OpenForge.ai. And Jason, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out.

Since this is part of the we’ll call it SaaS and AI series, on this combination, Dara, who founded Delphi. Delphi AI is cool. You can clone yourself using their, I actually Jason, did some interviews with people and when I reached out to Dara, I’m like, I don’t want to interview you, I want to interview your AI clone. And so I interviewed there’s like a 20-30 minute interview of me just interviewing his AI clone. And then I had him on and he, you know, the live real version. But it’s a cool platform. Check it out.

Also, Nicole Donnelly, that’s how I heard about Open Forge. Nicole, I don’t love the word guru, but she’s like very well versed in AI and AI smart marketing, and we just geeked out on all the AI tools. So check out that episode. And she mentioned, you got to check out Jeremy Open Forge. I’m like, all right, now we’re checking it out. This is great.

Also, Pipedrive was a good one. Zapier, one of the co-founders of Zapier, was on. Just some really good SaaS founders. If you want to check those out as well. And we’re going to talk about Jason mentioned, a real estate property management company using Open Forge, DoorLoop. I had the founder of DoorLoop on. They’ve grown really quickly. I think in, I don’t know, a couple of years, Jason. They were like at over 200 team members or something like that. So we’ll have to share this DoorLoop. Maybe they’ll be using Open Forge in the near future. He’s a good guy over there, so check that out and more on InspiredInsider.com.

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do this in a few ways. One, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, accountability and the full execution production.

And number two, we’re an easy button for a company’s gifting. You know, gifting, staying top of mind to clients, partners, prospects, even staff. From a culture perspective, people just send us the addresses, we do everything else. And it’s not kind of like a one time gift. We like sending a campaign of gifts. So it’s like, you know, think three gifts a year for 3 to 4 years to come.

So, Jason, we kind of call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background and make it stress free for a company to build amazing relationships. And, you know, for me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I always look at ways to give to my best relationships. I’ve found no better way over the past 15 years than to know one profile of the companies and people I admire and share with the world what they’re working on to send them sweet treats in the mail. So go to Rise25.com or email [email protected].

I am excited to introduce Jason Patel, serial entrepreneur, Founder of Open Forge AI. As I mentioned, Open Forge AI is a platform of AI agents that helps your business get seen and drive customers through ChatGPT. If you’ve heard of the term GEO, I don’t know who came up with that term. Jason. You know, but GEO, not SEO. GEO, how are you getting found on these AI search engines? This is what Open Forge does.

And previously he started Transizion Education, which is an integrated knowledge platform that empowers institutions to mentor the next generation of students. He sold that and this is his baby now. So Jason, thanks for joining me.

Jason Patel: 03:54

Jeremy. Thank you for having me. Super excited for the conversation.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:58

I’m going to start off and just tell people about Open Forge AI and what you do as you’re doing that, I’m going to pull it up on the screen so we can check it out.

Jason Patel: 04:05

Yeah. Heck yeah. Well, again, thank you for having me. Open Forge is a platform that helps businesses get seen, cited, and selected by ChatGPT. So when a customer searches for you, we want you to show up there.

When a customer searches for a query or a term or a product related to your industry or product that you sell, we want you to show up. And what we do is that we have our own set of AI technologies, our own AI agents. We have our own AI that provides you with insights and automations to help you show up on AI search. So our AI will help you build content based on what your competitors are doing. It’ll help you build technical optimizations for your website to make sure that AI can read your website.

It’ll help you create landing pages and assets and comparison charts to ensure that you’re doing everything you can to make your site machine-ready AI readable for this new age of marketing and this new age of AI.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:05

You know, when I was talking to Nicole. You know, she uses it. I know obviously companies use it, but there’s a lot of, this is a lot of agencies who do SEO for companies. I’m like, okay, they need to stay ahead of the curve in this GEO realm. What are some of the things that you advise agencies through the platform overall?

Jason Patel: 05:25

Yeah, overall for agencies, the first thing I would say is that it really depends on what industry you serve. I say that because ChatGPT will weigh different aspects of different industries more in order to get surfaced by ChatGPT. So what do I mean? For example, we work with businesses of all kinds, but one type of business we work with is a car manufacturer or car dealerships, and we have a major car manufacturer as a customer, we have a lot of car dealerships.

ChatGPT loves servicing car dealerships when they are cited by third party review sites that are industry specific. And so what ends up happening is that we, our AI, will help you build citations for those third party review sites for your vehicles, your car dealerships to ensure that ChatGPT can trust you. The reason why ChatGPT probably thinks that’s important for car dealerships is because if you’re making a major purchase, a car is very expensive. It’s certainly a pull on the balance sheet. ChatGPT wants to ensure that you, as the consumer, are educated about the best buying options out there, which is why it promotes those third party review sites.

But what that said, for different industries like compliance in B2B SaaS, the website itself is something that ChatGPT loves quite a bit. So do you have good content on your website? Do you have comparison tables? Is your website HTML or machine readable? Do you have JavaScript object Notation code?

These are the things that ChatGPT loves on those sites and those companies to ensure that it’s bringing those sites up. So again, to go back to your question about what I would tell agencies, first, figure out and identify what type of customers you work with, and then you can reverse engineer what ChatGPT looks for correctly. And of course, we provide all of those insights on our platform.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 07:24

I’m curious about a couple things. And we’re looking at your website here. And you can see anyone can check it out, OpenForge.ai, or check out YouTube. But you know, you can see you have actual insights. You have customer query insights.

And people kind of navigate a little bit about what they would see on the inside if they, you know, got this. Competitive landscape, competitive opportunities. I want to see one. I’m curious why you even started this company, right? This seems like a big undertaking. And two, we’ll go into, you know, I’m sure you’ve gotten feedback from customers throughout and why you built these pieces. You know, maybe you started with two and then you added a brand overview, kind of the evolution of that. But why did you start this in the first place?

Jason Patel: 08:10

Absolutely. You know, my parents came to this country in 1985 before they had me. I owe all of, you know, whatever opportunities I’ve been given to this great country. Now, America is my country. I’m very patriotic.

I want to help American businesses adapt and thrive in this new age of AI. AI is certainly tumultuous, and it’s scary because it is going to fundamentally alter the way we interact with the world, whether it’s through wearables or commercial technology or anything from ERP to shopping for different products. AI is going to change everything. It is a massive multi, multitrillion-dollar opportunity. I’m talking potential double digit GDP growth at the very least high single digit GDP growth if the country does it correctly.

But for the average person, for people like my parents who are hard workers and are not on the bleeding edge of AI, this is something that is anxiety inducing because it is changing the way we interact with everything, every aspect of our lives, and it’s going to change even more. I want to be there for fellow American entrepreneurs, fellow American businesses, to help them embrace this new AI age. Change is scary, but change can be exciting because it provides a lot of new opportunities. If I could be one small part of that engine in American innovation and help my fellow countrymen, my fellow Americans, with adapting to AI and making money off AI, and then sending your kids to college off AI and everything that you do. I would love to be a small part of that.

And so this company, I started a company before this, I sold, I built and sold that. We did very well with SEO search engine optimization, which is this is AI, SEO.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:07

With Transizion. You’re talking about.

Jason Patel: 10:07

The Transizion. And we did very well against venture backed competitors. I was dead broke when I started the company. And I, you know, we fought tooth and nail. We did very well on SEO.

And so when generative AI came out, I thought, wait, I mean, people are going to be people are going to make multibillion-dollar industries off of this. But it’s also really scary. So this was a great way to wed my desire to help other businesses in this country, and then also just really hone in on what I’m very good at.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:38

I mean, you knew, you saw the power of SEO with Transizion, it sounds like. And it seemed like there was a technical platform behind it. Are you a technical person or are you teamed up with technical people? Because I saw like your backgrounds in more political communication, not computer science. So how did you navigate that?

Jason Patel: 10:59

Yeah, it’s funny, I always make the joke. My co-founder, Lucas, is a white guy from Anchorage, Alaska, and he’s the technical one, and I, the Indian guy from the Indian American from New Jersey. I’m the business one, you know, I’m not the technical one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. We have a team and it’s, you know, a lot of the stuff that we built here is on the cutting edge of, of AI.

But I’m not technical. I’m the business guy. And I really focus on, you know, talking to other founders and entrepreneurs and other business people, marketers on what are their key anxieties around the AI age and how is it changing your entire marketing funnel. Lucas is the one who has built and designed this whole thing. I would recommend him for an interview, but he’s very private.

Probably will hate that I’m mentioning him and giving him credit for everything right now. But I love the guy and he deserves a lot of credit for what he’s built. I’m the one who goes out there and talks to our customers and learns more about the markets that need help. And then we have a small team of engineers. This whole AI age is one of these things where you could be a small team and really just really carve out a good niche and make a very big business from using and leveraging AI correctly and to get to the next point here is that AI, I firmly believe, is a human amplifier.

It’s not a replacement. I don’t think AI is a replacement. I don’t think people should view it that way. Think of AI as you hire a team of Navy Seals, not necessarily a whole military, but a team of Navy Seals. And you guys can move the world if you use AI correctly.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:37

I’m curious. Did you always, you know, going from political communication, were you thinking, I want to start a business? What were you thinking when you were in college? High school? Because you started Transizion just a few years after college. So it. I don’t know if that was the intent or how did you stumble into entrepreneurship?

Jason Patel: 12:57

One happy accident after another. I did politics at a school in DC called The George Washington University, thinking I would go and live in DC my whole life and go into politics. I worked in politics for 1 or 2 years, did not enjoy it, did not enjoy it at all. I love the people I met. DC is an amazing place and the people I worked for were amazing.

It just wasn’t my cup of tea. And so while I was working my corporate political job, I was volunteering on the side helping low income kids with the college and career process. I fell in love with just the mentorship and the volunteering.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:38

Was it through like a nonprofit?

Jason Patel: 13:40

It was through a nonprofit. It was through. It was through like local charter, like a local. I don’t know if they’re called charter schools, but local schools, essentially. And I fell in love with it.

One of my kids that I was working with got a full ride to a bunch of schools. His mom said, you know, don’t do this for free. You know, help people. But if you want to continue doing this, you know, and helping and volunteering, you should start a business so that you could sustain yourself.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:05

And that’s what the mom said to you.

Jason Patel: 14:07

It’s the mom, the mom’s. It wasn’t even my idea. It was the mom who said it. And I was like, oh, that’s a great idea. So I started a little consultancy.

The consultancy grew, and then I had to create a technology platform out of it, and that created Transizion education.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:22

Were you charging people directly then through that like, or do you charge the does it okay. Because if someone’s low income, it’s like, are they going to be paying a consultant to write or so. So what ended up happening at that point?

Jason Patel: 14:36

Yeah, yeah. So we went up market on the consumer sales side, and then we ended up working with a bunch of schools. And that would subsidize the volunteering and just helping, you know, the kids who couldn’t afford it, which is perfectly fine by us. Yeah. It was great way.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:49

I mean, people spend a lot more on their kids than they will themselves. I have found most of the time, so.

Jason Patel: 14:56

Which is a beautiful thing. That is the way of human beings and the way of loving parents. And that’s the American promise, right? I want to build a better future for my children than I had for myself. And that’s the promise of this whole thing. Children are everything. I don’t have kids yet, but that’s that’s everything.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:14

Speaking of that, Jason, you know, the entrepreneurs who are first generation, second generation immigrants are always super hard working. And a lot of times, you know, they came from nothing or they came over here with nothing, essentially, and then is built up. What was your parents, what were they doing when they came over here?

Jason Patel: 15:37

Yeah. It was tough for them. And it’s one of the big reasons why I have a strong sense of patriotism, because they also recognize that America has given them everything. My parents came here ‘85. My dad worked at gas stations and just did odd jobs to support himself because he had to go to school again because his degree wasn’t, you know, super accepted here for a whole bunch of reasons.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 16:03

Oh, yeah. I mean, I know, you know, they came over there were doctors and engineers where they were, and then nothing translates and they have to clean hotels or I mean, whatever it is, you know, I’ve heard all those things.

Jason Patel: 16:15

My parents, I mean, they were young, they got married at 22, which is normal for that generation. It’s not like millennials now where we get married in our 30s and they got married at 22. And, you know, six months later they’re in America. So they didn’t have careers. They didn’t have lives.

They built their, it was just, you know, whatever their way of life was there. They came here. Mom worked at McDonald’s, Taco Bell. She did a lot of fast food stuff. And yeah, I mean, it was one odd job after another.

And then in 91, 92, right around when my parents had me or right before actually right after my parents had me, my dad got his lucky break from IBM. He kind of stumbled into a job at IBM. And he credits IBM with changing our family’s life. And so, yeah, it was six, seven years of really hard struggle for them. And then, you know, it was struggle afterward because my dad, you know, wanted to go into business for himself.

He started two companies. Both failed over time. And then, yeah, the third small business, he had succeeded, luckily. But you know, we are products of the American dream here.

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