Next Net announced a strategic partnership with Audacy to launch NextNet AI - AI Search Discoverability Optimization for local and regional businesses nationwide. This new AI-powered discoverability solution is designed to help local and regional businesses remain visible as consumer search rapidly shifts toward AI-driven experiences. As consumer behavior rapidly shifts toward agentic search, AI assistants, and recommendation-driven discovery, traditional SEO and paid media alone are no longer sufficient.
Large national brands have the resources to adapt quickly, while local and regional businesses risk becoming invisible in both traditional and AI-powered search environments. The partnership brings enterprise-grade AI discoverability capabilities to small and mid-sized businesses that are being excluded from emerging search and discovery channels due to cost, complexity, and technical barriers. Through Audacy's nationwide network of more than 550 media and marketing consultants and deep local market relationships, the new offering will be bundled into Audacy's digital and media offerings, making advanced AI visibility accessible, practical, and scalable for local advertisers.
This will have a dramatic and far-reaching impact on local and regional businesses all across the country. Unlike point solutions that attempt to retrofit existing SEO tactics for AI, Next Net AI is designed for the structural realities of large language models and agentic systems. The platform optimizes websites and digital assets at the domain level, transforming them into formats that are natively consumable by LLMs, reducing processing cost while improving visibility across traditional search, AI recommendations, local discovery, content distribution, and digital PR. Next Net's platform is powered by NVIDIA technologies, enabling processing efficiency and scale that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive.
NVIDIA is not a direct partner to Audacy in this initiative, but plays a critical role in empowering Next Net's AI infrastructure. The launch reflects a broader shift in how media companies are evolving - moving beyond distribution alone to provide infrastructure and intelligence that help advertisers remain visible as discovery moves away from links and toward answers, agents, and actions. The partnership with Next Net continues Audacy's momentum in forging strategic alliances with high-performing brands that expand advertiser opportunities.
Recently, Audacy has announced major collaborations with iHeartMedia and TuneIn to broaden distribution and with MOGL to modernize sports marketing through athlete-influencer integrations. The Company has also recently launched a Local Marketing Playbook to help guide successful local businesses with their digital strategy. The Playbook includes clear explanations, smart strategies, and practical steps to help marketers cut through the noise of the digital landscape.
Next Net believes many competitors are estimating this transition by treating AI discoverability as an incremental extension of SEO rather than a fundamental architectural change.
