Brand discovery is undergoing a seismic shift. 

Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini are no longer just futuristic concepts; they are rapidly becoming the go-to sources for answers, recommendations, and even initial brand discovery for millions worldwide. 

The global conversational AI market was projected to expand from $12.24 billion in 2024 to $61.69 billion by 2032. More specifically, the chatbot market, valued at $7.01 billion in 2024, is anticipated to reach $20.81 billion by 2029, growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24.32%.

A YouGov poll indicated that 56% of Americans use AI tools, with 28% using them at least weekly. Another survey found that 88% of people had engaged in at least one conversation with a chatbot in the past year.

Statista data projects that the number of AI tools users globally will grow from 115.90 million in 2020 to a projected 729.10 million by 2030, with an estimated 378.80 million users by 2025.This adoption is having an effect on search engine referrals, as Axios reports:

Additionally, social media channels have been imposing link penalties for years that suppress website traffic.

Lastly, we are seeing generative AI technology increasingly being integrated into everything, from coding tools to social media platforms.

As a Chief Marketing Officer, if you’re not asking how your brand appears in these AI-driven conversations, you are overlooking a critical factor in your future success.

It’s time to consider an AI Brand Visibility Audit.

This isn’t just another tech trend to monitor; it’s a fundamental change in how audiences will find and form opinions about your organization.

An AI audit is a crucial component of preparing for AI Visibility; it is your first essential step to understanding and navigating this new terrain. It’s about looking under the hood to see how your brand is currently reflected, understood, and communicated by these influential AI systems.

The Silent Storyteller: How AI Is Shaping Your Brand Narrative (Whether You Know It or Not)

Every day, individuals turn to LLMs for quick summaries, complex explanations, product comparisons, and solutions to their problems. The responses they receive are shaping perceptions and influencing decisions, often without them—or you—realizing the full extent of the AI’s influence.

Think about it:

• When someone asks an LLM about the “best solutions for X industry problem,” is your company mentioned?
• If a potential customer queries an AI about your products, is the information accurate, up-to-date, and reflective of your core messaging?
• What sentiment is conveyed when your brand is discussed in AI-generated text?

The challenge is that LLMs can sometimes be a “black box.” Their training data is vast, and the algorithms complex. Without a deliberate effort to investigate, you might be operating in the dark, unaware of how your brand is being portrayed or, critically, if it’s being overlooked entirely. This is where an AI audit becomes indispensable.

AI Visibility Research is a Strategic Imperative for Today’s CMO

For forward-thinking marketing leaders, conducting an AI Audit isn’t just a box-ticking exercise; it’s a strategic imperative with tangible benefits:

1. Safeguard Your Brand Reputation: Your brand identity is meticulously crafted. An AI audit helps ensure that AI platforms are reflecting your story accurately. Are there outdated facts, misinterpretations of your mission, or a negative sentiment skewing how your brand is perceived? Early detection is key.
2. Understand the Evolving Customer Journey: The path to purchase is no longer linear, and AI is introducing new touchpoints. An AI audit provides insights into how your target audience might encounter your brand (or your competitors) during their AI-assisted research and discovery phases. This helps you understand your presence—or absence—at critical decision-making moments.
3. Gain Competitive Intelligence in the AI Arena: How does your brand stack up against competitors when AI is the interrogator? An AI audit can reveal if competitors are being more favorably positioned or more frequently mentioned for relevant industry queries, giving you vital intelligence to refine your strategy.
4. Proactive Risk Management: Misinformation, negative narratives, or even subtle biases in AI-generated content can emerge. An AI audit acts as an early warning system, allowing you to identify and strategize responses to potential reputational threats before they escalate.

Build the Foundation for AI Discoverability: You can’t optimize what you haven’t measured. An AI audit provides the crucial baseline understanding of your current AI visibility. These insights are fundamental to any subsequent efforts to enhance how your brand is discovered, understood, and ultimately recommended by AI systems. This is the core of what AI visibility research aims to achieve.

What Key Insights Does an AI Visibility Audit Deliver?

While the specific methodology of an AI audit can be detailed, the objective is clear: to provide you with a comprehensive picture of your brand’s standing within the AI landscape. Key areas of illumination include:

• Information Accuracy: Verification of core company details, product/service information, leadership, and other factual data as presented by LLMs.
• Brand Messaging & Tone Alignment: Assessment of whether the AI’s portrayal resonates with your official brand voice, values, and key marketing messages.
• Sentiment Analysis: Understanding the overall emotional tone (positive, negative, neutral) associated with your organization in AI-generated content.
• Visibility & Discoverability Gaps: Identifying if, and how, your organization appears for relevant keywords, industry topics, and problem/solution-based queries. Are there significant omissions?
• Competitive Positioning: A snapshot of how your organization is represented in comparison to key competitors within AI responses.

These insights form the bedrock of a robust strategy to enhance your organization’s presence in this emerging AI-driven ecosystem.

From Visibility Audit to Action: The CMO’s Strategic Advantage

The findings from an AI audit are not just interesting data points; they are actionable intelligence that should directly inform your strategic planning. As a CMO, this research empowers you to:

• Refine Content Strategy: Identify content gaps or areas where your existing materials aren’t being effectively surfaced or understood by AI. This can guide the creation of new, AI-friendly content or the optimization of current assets.
• Enhance SEO & Digital Footprint: Remember, LLMs are often trained on the vast expanse of web content. Insights from an AI audit can provide a new lens for your SEO and digital presence strategies.
• Inform PR & Communications: Equip your communications team to address any inaccuracies or negative sentiment discovered, and to proactively shape the narrative.

Future-Proof Your Brand: By understanding and adapting to how AI influences perception and discovery, you position your brand for sustained relevance and growth.

Take Control of Your AI Narrative

The rise of AI in information discovery is undeniable. As a CMO, you have an opportunity to be proactive. An AI audit is more than just a technical check; it’s an investment in your brand’s future, ensuring you are not just a passive subject of AI conversations, but an active participant in shaping your narrative.

Understanding your current AI visibility is the crucial first step. It’s time to ask the critical questions and seek the data that will empower you to navigate the AI revolution with confidence and strategic foresight. Is your organization prepared? Tunheim can help.

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Search engine optimization tactics are integrated within our public relations and earned media efforts. One particular tactic that has long been a standard practice of search optimizers is link building: the acquisition of links to content.

Why are Links From Media More Valuable Than Other Links?

Keywords vs. Links

What set Google apart in the early days of search from the Alta Vistas and Hotbots (for those of you old enough to remember) of the world was the recognition that a link was essentially a vote in favor of content.

Rather than simply digesting websites and matching search queries to the keywords found in web content, Google built its algorithm on the underlying infrastructure of the web: The hyperlink.

Not only did Google recognize that a link was a vote but it also recognized that not all votes were equal; that some links were more valuable than others.

6 Factors Affecting Link Authority

What makes one link more valuable than another—apart from the traffic you may enjoy as a result of people clicking on that link? What makes one link more valuable than the next in terms of search ranking?

The authority of the link. These are some of the factors that contribute to the authority of the site doing the linking.

1. Content Vetting

One of the things to think about is whether the organization providing the hyperlink has a formal system or policies in place that dictate to whom and in what scenarios they will link to another site.

Another thing to think about (and these often go hand-in-hand) is the degree to which that organization is responsible for providing objective and unbiased information.

2. Link Authority of .gov, .mil and .edu Sites

Websites with a .gov, .mil, or a .edu top-level domain are considered to be the most objective and unbiased. For several reasons, links from those sites are therefore given a lot of weight in terms of search visibility:

• Only specific, authorized organizations can obtain a .gov, .mil or a .edu domain. They are not available to just anyone.
• Those sites typically have very strict linking policies, so links from them are usually earned based solely on the merit of the content being linked to.

3. Link Authority of Brand Websites

Websites of brands are also typically selective in linking externally if for no other reason than the purpose of a brand website is to promote a brand, not other websites.

These websites typically adhere closely to thoughtful brand guidelines and policies, as well, so links from them are also difficult to obtain.

4. Link Authority of News Organization Websites

While they rarely have the type of strict linking policies that governments and educational institutions do, news organization are presumed to have a vetting infrastructure in place, which can include:

• Reporters required by journalistic standards to obtain three sources to verify facts (not so common any more but still a standard)
• The use of fact-checkers
• Editors
• Simple journalistic competition
• The policy of a “church/state” separation between editorial teams and advertising teams (though this is fast eroding at a lot of news organizations)

News organizations link to other sites very selectively, so these links are hard to earn.

5. Link-to-Link Topicality

Another reason links from news organizations are so valuable in terms of search is that they are placed within the context of a certain topic. The link is usually placed within the body of an article devoted to a specific topic from a presumed authority on that topic and the link points to another web page about that very same topic.

There is usually a strong topical correlation between the two pages of content, which is a strong signal to Google about the relevance of those two pages to searches about that topic.

6. Citation Authority of News Organizations

Search engines’ ranking factors are a closely-guarded secret but it doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to think that the mere fact that a company gets cited in a news story–even without a link–might help to boost that company’s ranking within relevant searches.

This is where traditional earned media efforts can pay online dividends beyond links to websites. It’s a tactic we consider for both our traditional public relations efforts as well as part of our search engine optimization services.

Does your digital PR program need improvement? Contact Us: We’re here to help!

This article was originally published on the e-Strategy Blog.

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