# Arlen Kumar - Co-founder & CTO of Wrodium

> Personal website of Arlen Kumar, serial entrepreneur and AI search optimization researcher building the infrastructure for brand discovery in the AI era.

## About Arlen Kumar

Arlen Kumar is a serial founder, AI researcher, and Co-founder & CTO of Wrodium. He sold his first company, Air Quake Simulations (a VR flight simulator hardware company), before turning 21. Now he's building the infrastructure for how brands get discovered by AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude.

### Current Role
- **Position**: Co-founder & CTO at Wrodium
- **Co-founder**: Leanid Palkhouski
- **Backing**: Berkeley SkyDeck '24

### Education & Research
- **University**: UC Berkeley
- **Studies**: Computer Science, Data Science, Economics
- **Research**: AI citation behavior under Professor Marti Hearst
- **Framework**: Developed the GEO-16 framework - 16 predictive factors that determine whether AI cites a source

### Core Expertise
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
- AI search optimization
- Large Language Model citation behavior
- Content structuring for AI systems
- Schema markup and semantic structure

## Wrodium

Wrodium is a Generative Engine Optimization platform that helps brands become the sources AI engines trust, cite, and recommend.

### What Wrodium Does
1. **Audits**: Shows how AI systems currently describe your brand
2. **Optimizes**: Restructures content for AI parsing, verification, and citation
3. **Maintains**: Keeps content current as AI systems evolve
4. **Measures**: Tracks AI visibility and citations tied to revenue

### Results
- 70% reduction in content workload
- 20% increase in AI citations within one week
- Integrations with 6 major CMS platforms

## Track Record

### Air Quake Simulations (Acquired)
VR flight simulator hardware company founded at age 19. Built 3D-printed cockpit components that undercut industry prices by 10x.

### Wrodium (Current)
Berkeley SkyDeck-backed GEO platform. Building the picks-and-shovels for the AI search gold rush.

### UC Berkeley Research (Ongoing)
Research on AI citation behavior. Developed the GEO-16 framework through experiments on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude.

## Research & Publications

- "AI Answer Engine Citation Behavior: An Empirical Analysis of the GEO-16 Framework"
- Topics: How to turn ChatGPT visibility into measurable revenue
- Topics: Content maintenance for AI assistants
- Topics: Why GEO, SEO, and AEO are different games with different rules

## Contact

Schedule a meeting: https://arlenkumar.com/contact
Website: https://arlenkumar.com

## Key Statistics

- ChatGPT has 200M+ weekly users
- Perplexity growing 40% month-over-month
- AI doesn't rank pages—it cites sources
- Brands optimizing for AI visibility in 2024-2025 will own their categories

## Values

1. **Honest Attribution**: Fixing the web's credit problem where AI summarizes content without proper citation
2. **Responsibility that Ships**: Building systems that optimize for accurate exposure, not just exposure
3. **Theory → Buttons**: Turning research into practical dashboards, workflows, and reports

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