Every day, conversations unfold across social platforms and websites around the world. A seemingly insignificant post — whether it involves AI-generated misinformation, hate speech, or a damaging rumor — can quickly snowball into a much larger public controversy.
Gudea, a company that tracks how stories and rumors spread online, describes itself as the “storm tracker for the internet.” It is applying AI social media crisis prevention to help organizations spot trouble brewing online before it turns into a full-blown crisis.
Unlike traditional social listening platforms, which only track metrics such as mentions, hashtags, and impressions, Gudea aims to show organizations who is driving a conversation, how information is moving, how quickly a story is gaining traction, and where it could be headed.
Rather than simply tallying posts, its AI analyzes behavior, relationships, and the pathways through which information travels across more than 500 mainstream and fringe websites and platforms, including X, Reddit, and TikTok.
Instead of merely telling a company that mentions are rising, Gudea aims to provide the context behind that growth so decision-makers can determine how and whether to respond.
“These big industries don’t understand that there are things they can do proactively to defend their reputation and their brand,” CEO and founder Keith Presley said. “A lot of the chief communications officers and chief media or marketing officers, they’re using legacy tools to try to figure out what’s happening. Those tools were only ever designed to tell you the number of hashtags or number of impressions.”
The pitch reflects a broader shift in how companies think about online reputation. Waiting for a crisis to peak before responding is often too late, and legacy monitoring tools rarely explain why a narrative is spreading or who is amplifying it.
Who Is Behind Gudea?
Gudea was founded in 2023 by Presley, Jonathan Sperber, and James Thomin.
Keith Presley, CEO and founder, brings more than 15 years of experience spanning political campaigns and defense, including building the infrastructure for Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign.
Jonathan Sperber, chief strategy officer, has a background in disinformation research.
James Thomin, CTO, holds a PhD in chemical engineering and has spent roughly two decades working in AI and machine learning.
Presley called the company’s path to becoming a startup unusual. “We’re one of those weird startups where I never wanted to do a company,” he said.
From the George Washington Initiative to Gudea
The team began with the George Washington Initiative, a nonprofit established after the 2020 election. The organization adapted strategies and tactics that the intelligence community has used overseas to disrupt online networks tied to groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. It applied them to domestic information campaigns.
The goal was to identify the online environments where information campaigns were taking shape and disrupt the pathways that allowed those narratives to reach wider audiences.
However, the team found that existing tools didn’t show how information was actually moving across people, groups, and platforms. That gap became the opening for Gudea.
How Gudea’s AI Analyzes Online Narratives
Traditional social listening tends to focus on volume: how many mentions, how many hashtags, how many impressions. Gudea’s approach goes further by examining the relationships and behaviors behind a conversation.
Its AI tracks how information travels across more than 500 mainstream and fringe websites and platforms. That includes major networks such as X, Reddit, and TikTok. By mapping pathways rather than just counting posts, the platform aims to show where a story could be headed next.
This context matters for decision-makers. Knowing that mentions are rising is useful, but knowing who is driving the conversation and how quickly a narrative is gaining traction can shape whether and how a company responds.
Nearly 40 Clients and Growing Demand
Three years after its founding, Gudea has nearly 40 clients. According to Presley, its customer base includes:
A Fortune 50 telecommunications company
A Fortune 50 retailer
“One of the world’s largest AI labs”
“One of the world’s largest bands”
Public relations and crisis communications agencies
Government agencies
With the rise of generative AI, Presley believes the need for Gudea’s technology has only grown as the company looks to expand its customer base.
AI tools have dramatically lowered the cost and effort required to generate content and coordinate online campaigns. What once required a larger organization can increasingly be carried out by a single person with a laptop and access to the right software.
“When we first started in 2021, and then as a company in 2023, we maybe saw one out of four things we looked at have inauthentic activity around it,” Presley said. “Now it’s probably nine out of 10 things that we look at have this inauthentic activity.”
What’s Next for Gudea
Looking further ahead, Gudea plans to expand its ability to understand where narratives originate and how they spread.
One major upcoming initiative is geolocation for narratives. Slated for next year, the technology is intended to allow users to identify where conversations are happening with far greater precision, down to the city-block level, Presley explains.
The company also wants to give customers greater access to the tools behind its analysis. For example, a company could eventually run an advertising campaign through Gudea’s AI model before launching it and get a better idea of whether the strategy is likely to produce a negative outcome.
$7 Million Seed Round Brings Total Funding to $15 Million
Last week, Gudea announced that it had raised $7 million in seed funding in a round co-led by Mudita Venture Partners and Silicon Road Ventures. The investment brings the startup’s total funding to approximately $15 million.
The funding signals continued investor interest in tools that help organizations manage reputational risk as AI-generated content and coordinated campaigns become more common online.
Why AI Social Media Crisis Prevention Matters
The rise of generative AI has made it cheaper and easier to produce content at scale. That shift cuts both ways. Organizations can communicate faster, but bad actors can also manufacture narratives with fewer resources than ever.
Gudea’s premise is that reputation defense should start earlier, not after a controversy has already spread. By analyzing behavior, relationships, and pathways across platforms, the company aims to give decision-makers the context they need to act before a story spirals.
For communications, marketing, and crisis teams, that means moving beyond legacy dashboards built around hashtags and impressions. The question is no longer just how many people are talking, but who is driving the conversation and where it is heading next.
