As AI chatbots increasingly replace Google as the public’s go-to source of information, a new kind of visibility battle is emerging—and Percepto Digital wants to make sure its clients win it.
The strategic communications and online reputation agency announced a partnership with Spotlight, an AI analytics startup that specializes in Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—a discipline designed to help brands surface accurately and favorably in AI-generated responses from systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.
The collaboration positions Percepto squarely in the middle of what might be the next evolution of public relations: AI visibility management.
Beyond SEO: Enter AEO
For two decades, digital reputation management was synonymous with search engine optimization—pushing favorable stories to the top of Google results. But as AI chatbots evolve into conversational “answer engines”, the rules have changed.
“Monitoring how brands and leaders are represented in AI-generated results is essential,” said Ran Blayer, CEO of Percepto. “AI visibility requires processing vast amounts of conversational data to uncover both opportunities and risks—and to extract actionable insights.”
Percepto has been researching how generative AI systems shape perception since early 2024, tracking how individuals and organizations are described when users ask about them in conversational AI tools. The findings have made one thing clear: brands are already being profiled by machines that most companies aren’t monitoring.
Shaping AI’s Narrative Layer
Spotlight’s analytics platform, originally built for marketers optimizing brand exposure in AI search, has been enhanced with Percepto’s input to serve a strategic reputation management function.
That means it doesn’t just measure visibility—it helps decode why certain narratives dominate AI answers, and what kind of content or sources influence those outputs.
The enhanced tool lets Percepto analyze client visibility across multiple AI chat ecosystems and craft data-driven content strategies that make their preferred narratives more prominent in AI-generated conversations.
“This collaboration gives us a powerful data-driven foundation,” said Blayer. “It allows us not only to monitor AI visibility but to shape future narratives by understanding which content types and platforms have the most influence on AI-generated answers.”
Managing Reputations in the Age of Machine Opinion
For Michael Hermon, founder of Spotlight, the partnership highlights how AI analytics can expand beyond marketing.
“It shows how Spotlight’s technology can support not just brands optimizing for answer engines, but also strategic communications and reputation management agencies operating in the AI era,” Hermon said.
The implications stretch far beyond PR. As AI models increasingly summarize and synthesize information about public figures and organizations, answer engine optimization could soon become as crucial to reputation management as traditional media relations or SEO.
And with regulators and consumers scrutinizing AI transparency, knowing how your brand is represented by algorithms may soon be as important as knowing what the press or Twitter says about you.
Percepto’s move underscores a simple truth: in the AI age, narrative control begins with the data machines read—and those who understand that layer will own the next generation of digital reputation.
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