AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Brand Management By John P. Mello Jr. May 13, 2025 5:00 AM PT ADVERTISEMENT Build HubSpot Apps, Faster New developer products preview the future of app building on HubSpot, including deeper extensibility, flexible UI, modern prototyping tools, and more. Learn More. Although building trust through a carefully crafted brand message is still important, artificial intelligence may be undermining its traditional influence. “AI isn’t just helping businesses create content or automate tasks; it’s empowering individuals to become instant digital detectives,” Mike Allton, chief storyteller at Agorapulse, a social media management platform for businesses, wrote Monday on LinkedIn. What that means, he explained, is a company’s entire digital history — reviews, articles, social media sentiment, even employee feedback — is now more transparent and instantly “queryable” than ever before. “The carefully crafted brand message? It’s still important, but AI can now cross-reference it with raw, aggregated public data in seconds,” he noted. Edwin Miller, CEO of Marchex, a conversation intelligence platform maker headquartered in Seattle, explained that the rise of large language models and real-time data analytics has effectively turned a company’s full digital footprint into a searchable, easy-to-interpret, and evaluative source of truth. “We’re entering a world where a company’s entire identity, how it treats customers, how it responds to criticism, what employees really think, and how well it delivers on its promises, can be surfaced instantly by AI,” he told TechNewsWorld. “And not just by researchers or journalists, but by consumers, investors, and competitors.” “This means companies no longer control the brand narrative the way they used to,” he said. “The narrative is now co-authored by customers, employees, and digital observers, with AI acting as a kind of omnipresent interpreter. That changes the playing field for brand management entirely.” AI Shrinks Trust-Building to Milliseconds Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst for SmartTech Research in Las Vegas, argued that brand management is a “huge deal” in the AI age. “Brand management is no longer just about campaigns — it’s about constantly monitoring and reacting to a living, breathing digital footprint,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Every customer interaction, review, or leaked internal memo can instantly shape public perception,” he said. “That means brand managers must be part storyteller, part crisis manager, and fully agile. The brand isn’t what you say it is — it’s what the internet says it is.” Allton noted that AI’s capability to “vet” or “audit” is a powerful reminder that, as AI is integrated into businesses, they must also consider how the external AI ecosystem perceives them. “It’s no longer enough to say you’re trustworthy; the data must reflect it because that data is now incredibly accessible and interpretable by AI,” he wrote. “Trust used to be built over years and could be lost in moments,” added Lizi Sprague, co-founder of Songue PR, a public relations agency in San Francisco. “Now, with AI, trust can be verified in milliseconds. Every interaction, review, and employee comment becomes part of your permanent trust score.” She told TechNewsWorld: “AI isn’t replacing reputation managers or comms people; it’s making them more crucial than ever. In an AI-driven world, reputation management evolves from damage control to proactive narrative architecture.” Proactive Transparency Brand managers will also need to be more proactive. They need to pay attention to how their brand is represented in the most popular AI tools. “Brands should be conducting searches that test the way their reputation is represented or conveyed in those tools, and they should be paying attention to the sources that are referenced by AI tools,” said Damian Rollison, director of market insights at SOCi, a marketing solutions company in San Diego. “If a company focuses a lot on local marketing, they should be paying attention to reviews of a business in Google, Yelp, or TripAdvisor — those kinds of sources — all of which are heavily cited by AI,” he told TechNewsWorld. “If they’re not paying attention to those reviews and taking action to respond when consumers offer feedback — apologizing if they had a bad experience, offering some kind of remedy, thanking customers when they give you positive feedback — then they have even more reason than ever to pay attention to those reviews and respond to them now.” Dev Nag, CEO and founder of QueryPal, a customer support chatbot based in San Francisco, explained that an AI-searchable landscape will create persistent accountability. “Every ethical lapse, broken promise, and controversial statement lives on in digital archives, ready to be surfaced by AI at any moment,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Companies can leverage this AI-scrutinized environment by embracing proactive transparency,” he said. “Organizations should use AI tools to continuously monitor customer sentiment across vast data streams, gaining early warning of reputation risks and identifying improvement areas before issues escalate into crises.” New Era of AI-Driven Accountability Nag recommends conducting regular AI reputation audits, doubling down on authenticity, pursuing strong media coverage in respected outlets, empowering employees as reputation ambassadors, implementing AI monitoring with rapid response protocols, and preparing for AI-driven crises, including misinformation attacks. Transparency without controls, though, can harm a brand. “Doing reputation management well requires a tight focus on the behavior of those who can affect the appearance of the related firm,” said Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore. “If more transparency is created without these controls and training in place, coupled with strong execution, monitoring, and a strong crisis team, the outcome is likely to be catastrophic,” he told TechNewsWorld. “AI is now part of the reputation equation,” added Matthew A. Gilbert, a marketing lecturer at Coastal Carolina University. “It monitors everything, from customer reviews to employee comments,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Brands should treat it as an early warning system and act before issues escalate.” AI in Branding Demands Action, Not Panic Allton argued that the rise of AI as a reputation manager isn’t a cause for alarm but a cause for action. However, it does make some demands on businesses. They include: Non-Negotiable Radical Authenticity If there are inconsistencies between what your brand promises and what the public data reflects, AI-powered searches will likely highlight them. Your operations must genuinely align with your messaging.“Authenticity is no longer a decision made by brands regarding which cards to reveal; instead, it has become an inevitable force driven by the public, as everything will eventually come to light,” said Reilly Newman, founder and brand strategist at Motif Brands, a brand transformation company, in Paso Robles, Calif. “Authenticity is not merely a new initiative for brands,” he told TechNewsWorld. “It is a necessity and an expected element of any company.” The “AI Response” Is Your New First Impression For many, the first true understanding of your business might come from an AI-generated summary, Allton noted. What story is the collective data telling about you?Kseniya Melnikova, a marketing strategist with Melk PR, a marketing agency in Sioux Falls, S.D., recalled a client who believed their low engagement was due to a lack of clear marketing materials. “Using AI to analyze their community feedback, we discovered the real issue was that customers misunderstood who they were,” she told TechNewsWorld. “They were perceived as a retailer when, in fact, they were an insurance fulfillment service. With this insight, we produced fewer — but clearer — materials that corrected the misunderstanding and improved customer outcomes.” Human Values Still Drive the Core Code While AIs process the data, the data itself reflects human experiences and actions, Allton explained. Building a trustworthy business rooted in solid ethical practices provides the best input for any AI assessment.Brand Basics Businesses that stick to fundamentals, though, shouldn’t have to worry about the new unofficial reputation manager. “Companies need to deliver great products and services and back them up with strong support,” asserted Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media, a market research firm in San Francisco. “Marketing is a separate thing, but their core business and the way they treat their customers need to be very solid and reliable,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Marketing and brand campaigns can then be built on top of that fundamental authenticity and ethical conduct, which will be reflected in AI results.” “I think people get very confused about what makes a successful business, and they’re focused on tips and tricks and marketing manipulation,” he said. “Great marketing is built on great products and services. Great brands are built by delivering great products and services, being consistent, and treating customers well. That’s the core proposition that everything else flows out of.” John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John. Leave a Comment Click here to cancel reply. Please sign in to post or reply to a comment. New users create a free account. More by John P. Mello Jr. view all More in Artificial Intelligence المصدر: https://www.technewsworld.com/story/ai-is-rewriting-the-rules-of-brand-management-179737.html?rss=1