The Future Of The Future

Generative Engine Optimization. Meet GEO.

Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa · January 6, 2026

Entrepreneur · Artificial Intelligence · Leadership · Financein

Interview with Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa

Generative Engine Optimization. Meet GEO. — Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa

Podcast: The Future Of The Future

January 6, 2026 · 26 min

Listen to Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa on The Future Of The Future.

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Generative Engine Optimization. Meet GEO.
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The Future Of The Future

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Key topicsWhy Most Businesses Will Be Invisible in AI AnswersAs search shifts from Google to AI assistants, many businesses are vanishing from the places where decisions now get made. Karl has seen this problem firsthand while building Attensira, a platform focused on helping companies surface in generative results. With a background spanning search engines, AI infrastructure, and product launches, he explains why visibility now depends on optimizing for AI systems rather than yesterday’s algorithms. AI Sounds Smart Until Search Grounds ItAI models can write fluently, but they still can’t think without retrieval. Karl has seen this gap firsthand while building search systems and integrating LLMs into real products: the bottleneck isn’t generation-it’s grounding. Without fast, accurate, and fresh retrieval, AI outputs drift, mislead, or hallucinate. He explains why the future of AI hinges less on bigger models and more on smarter search infrastructure that keeps them tethered to truth. Search Is the First System to Betray YouEvery product that depends on discovery eventually hits the same wall: search. It’s the invisible layer that feels trivial-until users pile in and everything slows, rankings drift, and engagement collapses. Karl has rebuilt these systems under fire, from AI startups to Model Diplomat’s platform, and has seen that great search isn’t about algorithms alone but about product sense. He shows how teams that design search around speed, relevance, and real user intent build products that scale-and those that don’t, stall. View all topics →

About Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa

Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa, podcast guest

Engineer and Entrepreneur Turning Search Challenges into Scalable Products

100,000+ Model Diplomat users worldwideUnder 20 seconds Transfer-speed target on Wise’s Speed teamAge 13 Began investing & studying economicsAttensira Founder of GEO tools company

Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa is a builder at the intersection of search, AI, and diplomacy. Today, he is actively working with Model Diplomat, where he has rebuilt the platform’s technical core into a fast, reliable research tool used by tens of thousands of students worldwide. What began as a niche project for Model United Nations participants is quickly proving itself as a proving ground for something bigger: a scalable engine for policy research that could one day support NGOs, diplomats, and public sector organizations.

Karl’s path here threads together economics, computer science, and a long-standing fascination with politics. As a student in Estonia, he threw himself into both coding and international relations, organizing simulations of UN debates before going on to engineer search systems from scratch. Professionally, he has held engineering and leadership roles across Europe and the US, from building ML infrastructure at startups like Papercup to co-founding ventures in AI-powered law and compliance. He is now also founder of Attensira, a company developing Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) tools to help brands surface in AI-driven answers, an effort that ties back to his lifelong obsession with how people and organizations get found.

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About this episode

Today’s guest isKarl-Gustav Kallasmaa; founder, engineer, and one of the sharpest voices thinking about how AI is changing search, visibility, and attention on the internet.

He’s built search systems from the ground up and now helps companies understand how they’re discovered by AI, not humans.

We’ll talk about AI retrieval, startup lessons, and what founders are getting wrong about visibility today.

Let’s dive in.

Guest: Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa

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