Would AI choose your brand?

Back in 2019, just before publishing my book, I needed a lawyer to help me review a number of intellectual property issues.

As you would expect, I didn't simply choose the first firm that appeared on Google. I spoke to people I trusted, asked for recommendations, read reviews, looked at websites and eventually selected a firm that felt right.

Looking back, the decision was influenced by all sorts of factors. Reputation. Recommendation. Experience. Trust. Perhaps even a little gut feel.

Now fast forward to 2026.

Increasingly, people are asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Copilot the same sorts of questions I was asking back in 2019. Which lawyer should I use? Which accountant would you recommend? What's the best CRM for a small business? Which hotel should I book?

So the big question is this: why would AI choose your brand over your competitors?

The honest answer is that nobody outside OpenAI, Google, Anthropic or Microsoft knows exactly how their AI models choose between brands. However, as these platforms become more widely used, some clear patterns are beginning to emerge.

For years, brands have invested heavily in understanding how Google chooses websites. Search engine optimisation became a discipline in its own right, with marketers carefully refining content, keywords and backlinks in pursuit of higher rankings. At first glance, AI appears to be something completely different. After all, Google presents a list of results, whereas AI increasingly provides a direct answer.

But when you look a little closer, the similarities are striking.

While each AI platform behaves slightly differently, recommendations appear to be influenced by many of the same factors that have shaped search rankings for years: relevance to the question being asked, evidence of expertise, reputation, authority and consistency across multiple sources. In short, AI seems less interested in what a company says about itself and more interested in the evidence that supports those claims.

In truth, this shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Google has been moving in this direction for years. The websites that perform best are rarely those making the biggest promises; they are usually the ones with the strongest evidence to support them. Reviews, citations, media coverage, industry commentary and independent endorsements all help build credibility, both in the eyes of search engines and, increasingly, AI.

This may explain why the brands most likely to be recommended by AI often share similar characteristics. They tend to have a clear point of view, consistent messaging, demonstrable expertise and strong levels of trust. In other words, many of the things good brand strategy has advocated for years.

So perhaps AI isn't changing the rules as much as many commentators suggest. The real change may be in how recommendations are presented. Google gave customers a list of options and asked them to decide. AI increasingly creates the shortlist on their behalf.

That has important implications for businesses. AI cannot see your strategy workshop, understand the thinking behind your positioning or appreciate the expertise that sits within your team. It can only evaluate what it can find. Which means that if your relevance, expertise and difference are not visible, they are unlikely to influence the recommendation.

In many ways, this brings us back to a challenge businesses have always faced: clarity. Clarity about who you are, what you do, who you do it for and why someone should choose you over the alternatives.

This is precisely what good brand strategy is designed to deliver. At its heart, a brand strategy creates alignment around a clear vision, a distinctive market position, a compelling value proposition, consistent messaging and a set of values that guide behaviour. It provides the framework that helps customers, search engines and increasingly AI systems understand why your business is relevant, where its expertise lies and what makes it different.

The brands most likely to be recommended by AI may not be those shouting the loudest. They are more likely to be the brands that have done the hard work of defining who they are, communicating it consistently and providing evidence to support their claims. In an AI-driven world, clarity is no longer just a marketing advantage. It is becoming a prerequisite for being found, understood and recommended.

If you’d like to explore how The Brand Arrow can helpAI recommend your brand over your competitors, email me at bruce@thebrandarrow.com.

I’m now celebrating my 17th year running my Brand Strategy consultancy, as well as regularly speaking at conferences and lecturing at business schools, I teach brand management on the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s diploma course and am an accredited speaker with the Vistage CEO network. My expertise has helped hundreds of businesses stand out, grow, and thrive.