For years, organisations have invested heavily in managing how they appear in media coverage, search engines, and social media because these channels have played an important role in shaping brand awareness and reputation.
Today, AI is a part of that equation.
Platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude and Google’s AI-generated search summaries are influencing how people discover information, compare options and form opinions. Before visiting a website, reading an article or contacting a business directly, many people are turning to AI for recommendations and advice.
According to Meltwater’s Digital 2026 Global Overview Report, ChatGPT became the fifth most visited website in the world during 2025, while 26.5% of online adults now use the platform. Whether comparing service providers, researching memberships, or exploring potential business partners, people are increasingly comfortable asking AI to do the heavy lifting before they have any direct interaction with an organisation.
For communications professionals, this raises an important question: If someone asked AI about your organisation today, what information would it draw on and what impression would it create?
AI is changing how brand reputation is formed
AI builds responses by drawing from a wide range of sources including media coverage, websites, social platforms, forums, reviews and other publicly available content. It acts as a curator, identifying patterns, looking for consistency and assembling information from multiple sources into a single response. That response may only be a few paragraphs long, but it can powerfully influence how audiences perceive a brand, issue or organisation.
Where reputation was once shaped through a mix of earned, owned and shared channels, AI is increasingly synthesising information from those sources and presenting it in a concise format; users are receiving summaries that shape their understanding from the outset.
So, your brand reputation is now in the hands of AI.
Why communication professionals have a bigger role to play
Much of the discussion around AI visibility has focused on search and digital marketing. However, AI appears to place greater weight on credibility, authority, expertise and consistency across multiple sources than traditional search engines.
These are areas communications teams have long influenced through media relations, thought leadership, executive profiling, stakeholder engagement and content development.
Every media placement, article, case study or review contributes to the picture AI builds about an organisation, giving communications teams an increasingly important role in shaping the information these platforms rely on.
Visibility requires more than one channel
One of the most interesting developments is the diversity of sources AI systems use when generating responses.
Analysis of AI citations shows that almost half of all citations in large language model (LLM) responses come from news media sources, reinforcing the ongoing importance of earned media and credible third-party coverage.
For organisations, visibility can no longer be viewed through the lens of a single channel. Media coverage, social conversation, thought leadership, community participation and owned content all contribute to the picture AI builds about a brand.
Discussion-based platforms such as Reddit and X, educational content on YouTube, specialist publications, reviews and community forums regularly appear in AI-generated citations. This suggests that AI values a combination of authority, expertise and public consensus.
Beyond news and social content, AI systems also draw from corporate blogs, FAQs, help centres, product documentation and case studies. Across some AI models, these sources account for up to 45% of citations, demonstrating the value of a diverse and credible content library.
Content needs to work for humans and machines
AI does not diminish the importance of storytelling. Organisations still need to connect with audiences and build trust, but what is changing is the way information is structured and presented.
Research suggests structured content is referenced more frequently than long-form narrative. Lists, comparisons, FAQs, explainers and expert-led insights are often easier for AI systems to interpret and summarise than broad or vague claims.
The strongest content strategies balance narrative and relevance, creating content that resonates with audiences while helping AI accurately interpret what an organisation does, how it delivers value and where its expertise sits.
A new reputation layer
AI is changing how information is discovered and interpreted, which means it is also changing how reputation is formed.
While organisations cannot control every source AI draws from, they can influence the quality and credibility of the information available.
AI adds another layer of brand reputation and organisations with strong, consistent and credible communications will be better positioned to influence how they are represented.
Communication professionals have spent years influencing what people think and say about organisations. Now they will also influence what AI says.