GEO: What does AI say about your brand?

Understanding and shaping brand perception in AI systems

With search engines, companies can influence how they are presented through snippets, ads, and metadata. With AI responses, the training data and cited sources determine the image. The good news is that this image can be specifically influenced.

The self-test: Five minutes that are well worth your time

Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Copilot and enter the following questions:

“What does [your company name] do?”
“Which companies are leaders in the field of [your core topic]?”
“What is the difference between [your company name] and [competitor]?”

The results are often surprising. Some companies discover a precise, up-to-date representation. Others find outdated information, incomplete descriptions, or simply find that they are not mentioned at all in key industry questions. Both results are valuable because they show where you stand.

A blind spot in brand monitoring

Brand monitoring for websites, social media, and PR is well established in most marketing departments. AI responses as a channel for brand perception, on the other hand, are on the radar of very few companies. This is understandable, as the channel is new. But it is growing rapidly, and every AI response that mentions or fails to mention your company shapes the perception of a target group that is increasingly researching in this way.

How do AI systems construct a brand image?

AI models extract information from all freely available sources and condense it into a representation. If a particular source dominates, such as an outdated industry listing or a critical press article, it disproportionately shapes the overall picture. This is not malicious distortion, but the logic of data aggregation. For marketing directors, this means that those who publish more up-to-date, technically sound content shift the balance in favor of the desired representation.

From observation to shaping

The path from passive observation to active shaping can be divided into three areas of action:

Establish monitoring:
Regularly check what AI systems are saying about your own company. Even a monthly check with five to ten representative questions provides useful insights.
Increase source quality:
Create authoritative, up-to-date content that AI models prefer to use. Specialist articles, well-maintained company websites, and consistent industry directory entries make all the difference here.
Set narratives in a targeted manner:
Structure company messages so that AI systems can interpret them correctly and completely. Clear, quotable key messages in the first paragraphs of relevant pages increase the likelihood of being included in AI responses.

AI visibility is not a substitute for existing brand management. It is an additional dimension that can be integrated into existing processes with manageable effort. Those who already invest in consistent brand communication are in the best position to paint a clear picture in AI systems as well.

How do AI systems represent your company? Our GEO Readiness Check with consideration of brand perception shows you where the representation deviates from your positioning and provides three concrete recommendations for optimization.