Influencing AI Search with the ABCs of AI-ready Messaging

As you’re cre­at­ing con­tent and eval­u­at­ing your exist­ing con­tent for this new AI-focused search envi­ron­ment, do you know what you’re focus­ing on to influ­ence AI search results in your favor? In my last post, I dug into all the ways that brand mes­sag­ing has changed in our AI-dom­i­nat­ed world. The three big fac­tors, or “notes,” are Author­i­ty, Build­ing trust and Content orig­i­nal­i­ty, or “ABC!”  

Let’s dig into the notes and dis­cuss a few ways you can focus on each note to make your con­tent and brand sing out in a sea of same­ness.   

Author­i­ty. Author­i­ty, as demon­strat­ed by cita­tions and men­tions, is a key rank­ing sig­nal for LLMs. In the AI search envi­ron­ment, cita­tions aren’t just mentions—they’re votes of con­fi­dence that influ­ence whether your brand appears in key moments.  

Recent SEO insights from 8,000 AI cita­tions reveal an impor­tant pat­tern: the brands most con­sis­tent­ly cit­ed by AI engines are those that have estab­lished gen­uine mar­ket lead­er­ship through steady posi­tion­ing. Top-cit­ed brands reli­ably match rec­og­nized mar­ket lead­ers such as Sales­force for CRM, Nike for sports­wear, Apple and Sam­sung for smart­phones, and Net­flix for stream­ing. This isn’t due to luck. It’s the out­come of years of con­sis­tent mes­sag­ing that has trained both human minds and AI algo­rithms to asso­ciate these brands with their respec­tive cat­e­gories. 

Put the A for “author­i­ty” into prac­tice: 

• Devel­op a sin­gle, pow­er­ful claim and defend it across all plat­forms 

• Cre­ate orig­i­nal research that posi­tions your brand as the defin­i­tive source 

• Ensure every piece of third-par­ty cov­er­age rein­forces your core posi­tion­ing 

• Mon­i­tor and mea­sure cita­tion fre­quen­cy in AI respons­es to track author­i­ty growth 

Build­ing trust through plat­form con­sis­ten­cy. Trust in the AI era isn’t built through indi­vid­ual touch­points; it’s cre­at­ed through the har­mo­ny of sig­nals across the entire dig­i­tal ecosys­tem. AI mod­els are sophis­ti­cat­ed pat­tern-recog­ni­tion engines that detect even minor incon­sis­ten­cies in brand rep­re­sen­ta­tion, which can cause con­fu­sion for Google and the AI mod­els, direct­ly impact­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty.  

Muck­Rack recent­ly released a new study show­ing that over 85% of AI cita­tions come from earned media. This indi­cates that media rela­tions efforts great­ly enhance brand mes­sage vis­i­bil­i­ty, with trust­ed out­lets and author­i­ta­tive con­tent being more impact­ful than tra­di­tion­al SEO key­words and back­links. 

Beyond earned media efforts, it’s essen­tial to ensure your brand mes­sag­ing remains con­sis­tent across all plat­forms. By main­tain­ing a clear and uni­form brand iden­ti­ty, Apple has built a loy­al cus­tomer base and estab­lished itself as a leader in the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try. Apple’s con­sis­ten­cy goes beyond mar­ket­ing into prod­uct design, cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, and even how third par­ties dis­cuss their prod­ucts. This cre­ates “sig­nal ampli­fi­ca­tion,” mean­ing every brand men­tion strength­ens, rather than dilutes, their brand author­i­ty.  

Put the B for “build­ing trust” into prac­tice: 

• Audit all your brand touch­points for mes­sag­ing align­ment 

• Cre­ate com­pre­hen­sive brand guide­lines that cov­er AI-spe­cif­ic sce­nar­ios 

• Train your team to main­tain voice and posi­tion­ing across plat­forms 

• Mon­i­tor your earned media cov­er­age to ensure a con­sis­tent brand rep­u­ta­tion 

• Devel­op response pro­to­cols for incon­sis­tent men­tions 

Con­tent cre­ation orig­i­nal­i­ty. As AI-gen­er­at­ed con­tent floods the inter­net, orig­i­nal­i­ty becomes the key dif­fer­en­tia­tor. AI search engines increas­ing­ly pri­or­i­tize brands that pro­vide unique insights, first-par­ty research, and authen­tic per­spec­tives that con­tent gen­er­a­tion tools can­not repli­cate.  

Orig­i­nal insights have become a key rank­ing fac­tor because AI sys­tems can tell the dif­fer­ence between recy­cled infor­ma­tion and gen­uine­ly new per­spec­tives. Brands that reg­u­lar­ly cre­ate orig­i­nal con­tent don’t just get cit­ed; they become the source that oth­er con­tent ref­er­ences.  

As writ­ers, we’re pas­sion­ate about orig­i­nal­i­ty – and con­cerned about what’s at stake. While AI offers incred­i­ble tools, stud­ies show it may also already be nar­row­ing our lin­guis­tic range and cre­ative expres­sion. That’s why authen­tic, orig­i­nal con­tent isn’t just a differentiator—it’s a neces­si­ty.  

Orig­i­nal­i­ty is about using your authen­tic brand voice and unique per­spec­tives that reflect gen­uine exper­tise. AI sys­tems are becom­ing increas­ing­ly skilled at detect­ing authen­tic thought lead­er­ship ver­sus recy­cled talk­ing points. So please don’t stop putting pen to paper (or fin­gers to keys, or voice to dic­ta­tion mode!) and con­tin­ue shar­ing your orig­i­nal thoughts and ideas. 

Put the C for “con­tent orig­i­nal­i­ty” into prac­tice: 

• Cre­ate con­tent that reflects gen­uine exper­tise and expe­ri­ence 

• Posi­tion exec­u­tives as thought lead­ers with dis­tinc­tive per­spec­tives 

• Share authen­tic case stud­ies and lessons learned 

• Invest in pro­pri­etary research that advances indus­try knowl­edge 

Are you ready to make sure your brand’s mes­sage is AI-ready? Let’s talk about how we can help you orches­trate a strat­e­gy that res­onates. Drop us a line at info@bellmontpartners.com today!