Does AI really have a meaningful effect on brand reputation today?

Yes. The people who decide whether to buy from, work for, write about, or invest in a company increasingly form their first impression through an AI engine, and they do it before they make any contact. AI is a present-day input into reputation, not a theoretical one.

The same pattern across every audience

Each major stakeholder group already researches before engaging, and that research is moving into AI engines:

• Buyers: B2B buyers complete roughly 70% of their buying journey on their own research before talking to a vendor, and most prefer to research independently first. AI assistants are becoming part of that pre-contact research.
• Candidates: senior candidates research employers before applying or accepting, and AI is now part of that step. In one survey, 54% of workers said they ask AI to judge whether a company is worth pursuing (“Is the culture right for me?”).
• Journalists: journalists almost always research subjects before an interview (94% say they review a subject’s work beforehand, and most use search engines to do their job), and AI tools are entering that background research.
• Investors: investors and allocators increasingly run AI-based research before formal diligence. A large share of investment firms now use AI in deal sourcing and diligence.

Why the specific engine matters

This is not one undifferentiated “AI” effect. The eight major engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode) answer the same question about a company differently, because they draw on different sources and weight them differently. So the practical question for a communications or reputation leader is specific:

1. Which engines are influencing which audiences for this company?
2. Which sources are driving each engine’s answer?
3. Where are the points of leverage to change it?

AIQ was built to answer those questions. It monitors how the eight major AI engines describe a brand, its executives, and its narratives. Whether AI affects reputation is settled; the live question is which engines, fed by which sources, are shaping each audience’s view.