Gudea uses AI to help organizations prevent social media crises

Every single day, countless conversations unfold across social media platforms and websites worldwide. A seemingly insignificant post—whether it involves AI-generated misinformation, hate speech, or a damaging rumor—can quickly snowball into a massive public controversy that harms organizations and brands. Gudea, a company that tracks how stories and rumors spread online, describes itself as the 'storm tracker for the internet.' It uses advanced artificial intelligence to help organizations spot trouble brewing online before it turns into an uncontrollable crisis.

Traditional social listening platforms have long relied on basic metrics such as mentions, hashtags, and impressions. However, Gudea aims to provide a much deeper perspective by showing organizations who is driving a conversation, how information is moving, how quickly a story is gaining traction, and where it could be headed next. Rather than simply tallying up posts, its AI analyzes behavioral patterns, digital relationships, and the actual pathways through which information travels across more than 500 mainstream and fringe websites and platforms, including X, Reddit, and TikTok.

Instead of simply telling a company that its mentions are rising, Gudea aims to provide the crucial context behind that growth so that decision-makers can determine how, when, and whether to respond. Gudea pitched its mission on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, making the compelling case that modern companies need to adopt a far more proactive approach to protecting their reputations and public image in a hyper-connected digital landscape.

CEO and founder Keith Presley emphasized that large industries often fail to realize the proactive measures available to defend their brands. He noted that many chief communications officers and marketing leaders still rely on legacy tools designed strictly to count hashtags and impressions. Founded in 2023 by Presley, Jonathan Sperber, and James Thomin, the startup brings together diverse expertise in political campaigns, disinformation research, and artificial intelligence, offering a sophisticated new defense mechanism for the modern corporate world.