Founder · NYC AI SEO Agency

John Raine.

I'm John Raine, the founder of Raine OS — an AI-first SEO agency in New York City. Before this, I was an engineer at Scale AI, where I helped train the large language models that now power ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and GitHub Copilot. I spent years inside the systems that decide which businesses get cited in AI-generated answers. Now I build that citation architecture for NYC service businesses.

Raine OS is a one-person studio by design. Six interconnected services, one point of contact, zero management overhead for the client. Capped at 5 active engagements per quarter so quality doesn't slip.

Track record

Credentials, not claims.

The unusual background

From training the AI engines to optimizing for them.

Most NYC SEO agency founders come from marketing, journalism, or sales backgrounds. John Raine came from the inside of the machines themselves. Before founding Raine OS, John worked at Scale AI as part of the team that trained the large language models powering ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and GitHub Copilot. He spent years writing the human feedback that taught these models how to evaluate authority, citation worthiness, and answer quality — which is exactly the discipline that now decides which businesses get cited in AI-generated answers and which don't. That's an unusual lens for an SEO founder. It's also why Raine OS is the only NYC AI SEO agency built around Answer Engine Optimization from first principles, not adapted from a 2019 Google playbook.

Why solopreneur

One studio. One point of contact. Six services.

Raine OS is intentionally a one-person studio. Every project goes through John directly — design, code, schema, content, brand, analytics. No account manager layer. No offshore handoffs. No coordination overhead. The trade-off is capacity (Raine OS caps engagements at 5 active clients per quarter to protect quality). The benefit is a level of execution discipline most NYC agencies cannot match: one decision-maker, one quality bar, one inbox, one Slack channel. Clients approve outcomes — not processes.

Why NYC specifically

The most competitive search market in the U.S.

Raine OS is based in New York City because NYC has the highest commercial search density of any market in the United States. Every Manhattan query is a buyer minutes from a decision. Every Brooklyn restaurant search is somebody booking dinner tonight. Every Tribeca legal search is a contract about to be signed. The opportunity for a focused NYC AI SEO agency to dominate is enormous — especially while every legacy NYC SEO firm is still selling 2019 Google.

What I actually believe about SEO

Search is being replaced by answers.

The single most important shift in search is happening right now: ten blue links are being replaced by single synthesized answers. ChatGPT recently passed Google as the fastest-growing search engine in history. Perplexity is rebuilding the research workflow. Google AI Overviews are eating the top of every results page. The question for any business in 2026 isn't 'how do I rank #1?' — it's 'how do I become the entity AI engines cite when somebody asks about my category?' Raine OS exists to answer that question. Specifically, in NYC.

Want to talk to me directly? iMessage me.

Every initial conversation goes through me, not a sales rep. 5 minutes over iMessage. No commitment.