Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa
Engineer and Entrepreneur Turning Search Challenges into Scalable Products
About Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa
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.
What sets Karl apart is his hybrid lens: he’s as comfortable diving into latency and ranking algorithms as he is thinking about the real-world contexts in which those systems are used. His approach favours speed, adaptability, and pragmatism, shipping products that people actually use rather than chasing theoretical perfection.
As a podcast guest, Karl brings sharp insights on search, AI-driven research, and the human side of technology adoption, offering a candid and practical perspective that resonates with both technical and policy-minded audiences.
Key topics
Why Most Businesses Will Be Invisible in AI Answers
As 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 It
AI 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 You
Every 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 →
Key topics
Why Most Businesses Will Be Invisible in AI Answers
As 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 It
AI 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 You
Every 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 →