New Zealand communications firm Pead says the rise of AI-generated search answers is changing how people form opinions about businesses. Instead of simply deciding which websites appear highest in search results, tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Google’s AI search features increasingly synthesise information from multiple sources and present users with an answer directly.
That changes the reputation challenge for organisations. Pead argues that businesses need to think about how consistently they are represented across credible third-party sources, including media, government, universities, professional bodies and other authoritative websites. As people increasingly ask AI tools conversational questions about companies, products and services, what those systems say may become as important as where a company ranks in traditional search.
Key facts
- Pead says organisations with an online presence are already being represented by AI tools, whether they actively manage that presence or not.
- Generative engine optimisation, sometimes called GEO or answer engine optimisation, focuses on how organisations appear within AI-generated answers rather than conventional search rankings.
- The article cites research indicating that around 90% of AI citations come from third-party sources, with traditional media accounting for approximately 27%.
- Consistency across credible external sources is becoming increasingly important because AI systems combine information from across the web when generating answers.
- Pead expects reputation management and communications strategies to evolve as AI search becomes more widely used.
Our take
This is an important change for New Zealand organisations because AI is starting to sit between the organisation and the person researching it. A prospective customer or client may increasingly ask an AI assistant about an organisation’s reputation, expertise or reliability and form an opinion without ever visiting its website.
For professional services, this makes reputation management particularly relevant. Firms should start testing what major AI platforms say about them, their people and their areas of expertise. The response should not be to manufacture content for AI. It should be to build a consistent and credible digital footprint across the organisation’s own material and trusted independent sources.
There is also an AI governance dimension. Organisations should consider AI search visibility as part of reputation monitoring, including periodically checking whether AI-generated answers are accurate, current and supported by credible sources.
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