AI is the new reputation frontier: five tips for measuring your brand's visibility

Search behaviour has changed almost overnight. A few years ago, up to 40 per cent of us clicked through to the sources behind a search result. Today, that figure is closer to four or five per cent, according to research shared at a recent IABC Asia Pacific webinar, held in partnership with Isentia. Increasingly, we trust the fluent answer an AI tool gives us, and rarely check where it came from.

For communicators, that's a big deal. Brand reputation is no longer shaped only by mainstream media and social channels; it's also shaped by a "black box" of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Panellists Prashant Saxena (Isentia), Ashley Edwards-Knapp (formerly Schneider Electric) and Takeo Apitzsch (Hoffman Agency) shared practical advice on measuring and managing this new frontier. Here are five tips for communicators across the region.

1. Test prompted and unprompted questions

Ask AI tools direct, branded questions about your organisation (prompted), as well as broader category questions where you'd hope to appear (unprompted).

• Run the same prompts across several AI tools, since audiences and results differ by platform (Singapore, for example, leans heavily on Claude, while other markets favour ChatGPT or Gemini).

• Repeat each prompt five to ten times to spot inconsistencies.

2. Rethink your PESO mix and media tiers

Paid, earned, shared and owned content is blurring together in AI answers, and your old tier-one and tier-two media lists may no longer reflect who AI actually trusts. LinkedIn voices, Reddit threads and niche trade press can carry real weight.

3. Keep your facts consistent everywhere

AI tools get sceptical when your own claims don't match what's said elsewhere. If your website, media coverage and third-party sources tell slightly different versions of the same story, expect AI to hedge on or challenge your claims, even when they're true.

4. Structure content so AI can actually use it

LLMs are cost-conscious and tend to skim rather than read in full, especially long PDFs or paywalled articles. Use clear headings, concise summaries and listicle-style structure near the top of your content so AI tools can find and cite it easily.

5. Don't forget the humans

AI is becoming a second audience alongside your human one, but it shouldn't replace it. Avoid producing content purely to game AI tools (so-called "AI slop"). Genuine, well-written content for real audiences remains the foundation of good measurement and good reputation management.

Want to go deeper on AI and comms? Much of the IABC APAC Fusion Conference in Brisbane this October will explore exactly this topic. Visit the IABC APAC Fusion 2026 website for details.