AI tools are already deciding which brands to recommend. Most marketing teams haven’t noticed, and the gap is widening.
Someone is planning a holiday. They open ChatGPT: “What are the best travel companies in the UK?” They get four or five brands back, each with a reason why. They pick one, click through, and book. Your brand isn’t in that list. Not because your product is worse. Because ChatGPT simply doesn’t know enough about you to recommend you.
This is happening across every category, right now. Travel. Finance. B2B software. Ecommerce. As we heard from Dr. Lauren Ingram last month, brands need to persuade robots to recommend them to humans. That’s the new challenge, and most brands aren’t set up for it yet. Here’s what we learnt from RE:Commerce 2026.
What’s actually driving AI recommendations
When ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews answers those queries, it draws on what it knows; mentions across trusted, authoritative sources. Credible reviews that have been indexed widely and structured data that clearly communicates what your brand does and who it serves. Brand information that stacks up consistently, wherever AI looks for it.
Emily Salt from Root Digital highlighted it’s the credibility and substance of coverage that drives AI citation, not the volume. A genuine editorial reference in a high-authority publication carries far more weight than a dozen syndicated mentions. Most brands optimise for reach. AI rewards depth.
Mairéad Connolly from Reddit also emphasised community conversations shape what AI surfaces. Genuine discussion about your brand in credible online spaces isn’t just good PR, it’s data. Brands without it don’t give AI much to work with.
What actually needs to change
Most brand marketing strategies are outdated. It’s no longer about optimising for keywords. It’s about understanding your customer and knowing why they choose you, both rationally and irrationally. Rory Sutherland opened Re:commerce talking about the importance of asking the right questions, specifically the “why” before building any brand strategy. You can’t build the right foundations without first understanding what you’re actually trying to achieve and that applies directly here. A travel company isn’t just well-reviewed, it’s the one a friend mentioned. Understanding that is the starting point. From there, the work is building authority around those moments, and PR is the key channel – getting your brand into the substantive, credible editorial conversations that AI actually goes looking for.
The measurement piece is where most brands fall down. Impressions, rankings, CTR, ROAS, don’t capture AI visibility. If a user asks ChatGPT for a recommendation and visits your competitor directly, it doesn’t appear in your GA4 as a missed opportunity. It simply doesn’t show up. Invisibility in your analytics doesn’t mean the problem isn’t real. You just have no idea how it happened.
The brands showing up in AI recommendations have built real authority in their category, and that starts with a clear view of what the business is and where it genuinely leads. PR strategy needs to shift from volume to credibility: fewer, more substantive placements in sources that carry real authority. Structured data needs to give AI systems a clear, consistent picture of what the brand does and who it serves.
Curious where your brand stands in AI-generated answers? Found’s GEO and AI Search team works with brands to understand their current AI visibility, identify the gaps, and build the presence that earns recommendations. Get in touch with the team to start the conversation.
