We are at the beginning of a profound shift in how people access, evaluate, and act on information. In the past, the journey from curiosity to decision was largely shaped by search engines, social platforms, and branded websites. Today, that journey is increasingly mediated by AI-native tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity.
These tools represent a new layer between people and the internet shaping what we see, believe, and choose. They are transforming how we search, what sources we trust, where we spend our time, and how we make purchases. And most importantly, for organisations, they’re changing how you are perceived, discovered, and described.
Understanding how AI sees you is fast becoming a strategic imperative.
A new information journey
In the traditional internet, a user typed a query into a search engine, skimmed through results, clicked on a few websites, read reviews, and eventually made a decision. This process was multi-step and largely shaped by web content, SEO strategy, and advertising.
In the AI-native internet, the journey is far more compressed. Ask ChatGPT for “the best financial software for freelancers in the UK,” and within seconds, it will generate a summarised, confident answer, complete with product names, reasons for selection, and sometimes direct comparisons.
People are increasingly trusting the AI’s judgement as a first pass filter, and in some cases, as a final decision-maker. Importantly, these models are editorialising information, shaping reality in subtle but powerful ways.
The rise of the AI knowledge layer
Emerging is a new “knowledge layer” that sits on top of traditional web content, synthesising billions of data points into conversational responses.
Unlike a search engine, which encourages you to click through to the source, these generative tools keep you within their environment. The model’s output becomes “the truth”. If ChatGPT says your company is “a well-regarded but niche player,” or fails to mention you at all, then that becomes the user’s perception, as it is unlikely that the user will look directly at marketing materials or public profile.
The implications are enormous. For the first time, companies need to ask: how do language models understand our brand? What are they saying about us when customers, journalists, investors, or candidates ask questions?
Brand visibility in a world without links
In the web era, being seen meant ranking on Google by having backlinks from reputable sites. Now, it means being embedded in the knowledge that language models have absorbed.
Unfortunately, you can’t short cut your way into a large language model. LLMs like ChatGPT are trained on a vast corpus of publicly available content from documents, to forums, to reviews, to media coverage, and open data.
Visibility becomes a function of how often you’re mentioned in trusted public sources, the clarity and consistency of messaging across those sources, how well a brand is associated with key sector terms and how accessible the value proposition is to machines trained to generalise.
This is a new form of digital presence. It’s part PR, part content strategy, part technical literacy.
Trust is being recalibrated
Where we once looked to reviews, certifications, or news articles, we now ask AI for the consensus.
But consensus can be messy. It’s important to note that LLMs draw on what’s statistically probable, not necessarily what’s accurate. If certain companies are mentioned more frequently or have stronger reputational signals in the training data, they may surface more often, it doesn’t necessarily mean the product or service is better than others.
Moreover, hallucinations (false outputs generated by LLMs) are still common. Some companies have found themselves misrepresented in answers. This includes being listed with outdated features, incorrect pricing, or even merged with other brands.
All of this means organisations need to engage proactively with how they show up in AI-generated responses. This is both for brand control and trust equity.
Shopping, shortcuts, and the AI customer
This shift is changing commerce too. Increasingly, people are asking AI what to buy, and in each case, the answer is a shortlist with no links.
This kind of AI-driven filtering radically changes how people discover products and services. It reinforces a winner-takes-most dynamic where a handful of names get repeated and therefore entrenched while others struggle for daylight.
This is the beginning of a new consumer habit. And the brands who test, learn, and land early will be the ones that earn trust and prime position before the rules change. ChatGPT Shopping has already launched, and for now isn’t a ‘pay-to-play’ environment. This is a golden window for brands to optimise content and experiment to understand how the model surfaces recommendations, what kinds of product detail it values, and how a brand voice can stand out in a conversational context.
The future of the internet
AI-native tools are rapidly becoming the new front door to the internet. They are more than a reflection of our world, these tools have the capability to reshape it. As these systems become more trusted and embedded into daily life, the way organisations are represented within them will have real consequences for that company’s brand, reputation, and commercial performance.
To succeed in this new era, brands must begin treating LLM visibility with the same urgency they once gave SEO. The next wave of brand building will be shaped by more than just by what people say about you, but by what AI says about you.
