Yext this week took the next logical step in the age of agentic AI: opening up its platform for customized AI integrations. But to clarify, the integrations happen in the reverse order that they normally do. This isn’t plugins and add-ons in Yext’s platform… It’s about bringing Yext into users’ environments.
Specifically, through aa model context protocol and APIs, users can bring Yext’s platform – including Scout and Yext Knowledge Graph – into their environment where they can use local AI agents to process data and uncover valuable insights. In that setting, they can also cross-pollinate other data they may use.
For example, if a company uses Claude, they can use the MCP to bring Yext’s full platform capabilities to their Claude-centric environment. They can then unleash Claude on Yext’s extensive data sets along with CRM systems, sales data, and anything else. We like to think of this as a ‘universal adapter’ for Yext.
According to Yext’s Chief Data Officer, Christian Ward, this is done for convenience, comfort, capability, and customization (our words). With convenience and comfort, many enterprises are hesitant to upload their data to a given platform. So this lets them bring Yext to where they live – a customer-centric move.
To that end, Ward believes that competitive standards in software will shift to serving users without them ever having to log in. That will take time and an attitude shift as software KPIs are built around things like logins and platform engagement. But bringing platforms to them could result in greater engagement.
Capability & Customization
On to capability and customization, that’s where things get interesting. Though Yext is robust on its own, the ability to cross pollinate its data with customers’ data can uncover new dimensions of otherwise-hidden insights. And Yext’s platform gains new levels of value once that can be unlocked.
In other words, now that there can be customized combinations of Yext’s platform, users’ AI agents, and other data sets, there will be virtually unlimited ways to utilize Yext and fill knowledge gaps. These combinations start to multiply when considering the number of AI agents and customer data sets.
To illustrate the depth of insights that can be achieved, Yext poses a few questions that represent how digital marketers can use it.
- Which cities represent the highest untapped market opportunity and where does our brand have thin or no coverage within a target radius?
- Which markets are we losing to the competition and what’s it going to take to win them back?
- Which of our markets are winning in AI search but losing on Google and where should paid search budgets shift?
- How are AI models describing our brand across markets and where is negative sentiment concentrated?
- Which listings publishers have the worst sync rates and where are data accuracy issues hurting our visibility?
Let the Insights Flow
To further illustrate, Ward raises the possibility of integrating Yext with a customer’s AI agents, plus publicly available databases like weather and Census data. An AI agent like Claude can be prompted to correlate sales data to variables like sunny days, locations, and population shifts. The insights then flow.
Given all these possibilities, there will be ways to deploy Yext’s data in ways that haven’t been thought of yet. And in that sense, Yext’s platform can be customized to digital marketers’ ongoing and dynamic needs. And if they need help thinking of ways to unlock more value, AI agents can help there too.
Taking it one more step, it goes beyond just marketing. The possibilities that Yext’s latest move unlocks could involve functions such as franchise development (where to put the next location); or even hedge fund managers that are looking for hidden clues that signal upcoming market outcomes.
Of course, these are not new examples, and have been empowered by data science for years. But one outcome will be democratization. With Yext, agents, CRM, weather data, and how many cat owners like chocolate chip ice cream, everyone has access to the full power of hedge fund quant departments.
All of this is seen in light of Yext’s scale. It has 10 billion signals analyzed, 150 visibility metrics per location, 20 local competitors tracked for every target business across four AI models, and coverage spanning 12 million business locations in 186 countries, with one million+ locations added every month.
Header image credit: GuerrillaBuzz on Unsplash
