What Does AI Think Your Brand Is?

Here's a question worth asking: if someone discovers your brand through an AI tool, would the description they see actually be accurate?

In a lot of cases, it's not. And that's a problem.

AI systems tend to blend whatever they can find online. They'll mix outdated details with old reviews, throw in services you stopped offering years ago, and sometimes pull in contradictory information from different listings. All of this gets mashed together into a single 'summary' that can become the first impression people see of your business.

Think about that for a moment. Someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity about your company, and the response mentions a product you discontinued three years ago. Or it misses your flagship service entirely. Or it confuses you with a competitor who happens to have a similar name.

None of that is great for business.

A Simple Test You Can Do Right Now

The good news is that checking this doesn't require expensive tools or specialist knowledge. You just need to ask.

Go to the major LLMs, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and put these questions to them directly:

"Who is [Your Brand Name]?"

"What does [Your Brand Name] do?"

"Who is [Your Brand Name] a good fit for?"

You'll learn pretty quickly whether AI has a clear understanding of your business or whether it's essentially making things up.

What You'll Probably Find

When you run this test, the results usually fall into a few predictable categories.

Outdated information. AI might reference old leadership, discontinued products, or locations you moved away from years ago. If your business has evolved, there's a decent chance the AI version of your brand hasn't kept up.

Missing context. Your core differentiator, the thing that actually makes you different from competitors, might be buried or missing entirely. What makes you worth choosing may not be part of the AI's understanding at all.

Confused identity. AI systems sometimes blend information from similarly named businesses, or pull from sources that misrepresent what you actually do. This is especially common for brands with generic names or those operating in crowded markets.

Review-driven narratives. If your online reviews skew toward particular themes, whether positive or negative, AI may weigh those heavily in how it describes you. One viral complaint from 2019 could still be shaping your AI brand perception today.

Why This Matters More Than It Used To

More people are using AI tools as their first point of research. Whether they're looking for a service provider, comparing options, or just trying to understand what a company does, the AI-generated summary is increasingly becoming the starting point.

If that summary is wrong, incomplete, or unflattering, you may never get the chance to correct it. The potential customer has already moved on to someone whose AI description actually matched what they were looking for.

What To Do About It

Once you've run this audit, you'll have a baseline understanding of your AI brand perception. From there, you can start addressing the gaps.

Update and consolidate your online presence. Make sure your website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, and other authoritative sources all tell a consistent, current story. Conflicting information across platforms is one of the main reasons AI gets confused.

Create clear, structured content. Answer the questions AI is trying to answer. Who you are. What you do. Who you help. Make this information easy to find and impossible to misinterpret.

Monitor regularly. AI models update their knowledge over time. What's accurate today might drift tomorrow as new sources get incorporated or old ones get weighted differently. This isn't a one-and-done exercise.

Closing thoughts

Your brand's AI representation isn't something you can directly control, but it is something you can influence. And it all starts with knowing what AI currently thinks you are.

Run the test and see what comes back. Then decide what needs to change.

It takes ten minutes. And what you learn might save you from losing customers you never even knew were looking.