How Communications Teams Protect Brand Reputation in the Age of AI Answers

Customer stories from PeakMetrics’s new AI Perceptions tool for which provides AEO/GEO support to communications teams

You’re tracking the news coverage. You’re following the social conversation. But are you missing what AI is telling people about your brand?

Those answers can draw on the same coverage, conversations, and webpages your team already works to understand and influence. When a damaging claim starts spreading, seeing those sources together can make the difference between knowing there’s a problem and knowing how to address it.

That’s why we built AI Perceptions, PeakMetrics’ new Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) solution purpose-built for communications teams. PeakMetrics is the first narrative intelligence company to measure AI-generated brand perceptions alongside news, social media, and other online sources within its core offering.

The customer stories below show why that connection matters: a national theater chain discovered outdated information feeding AI answers, while a major media organization used broader narrative intelligence to uncover the context needed to counter a conspiracy theory.

A national theater chain discovers its own website is fueling a false claim in AI answers

[Insert theater-chain image]

A false, damaging narrative about a national theater chain was gaining traction across news and social media. The communications team could see the story spreading. What it needed to understand was where the claim was coming from.

That distinction mattered for the response. Identifying the accounts and outlets repeating the story could show its reach, but the team also needed to find the information allowing it to keep resurfacing.

Following the narrative back to its source

PeakMetrics detected the narrative early and by leveraging AI Perceptions, it traced it to an outdated page on the company’s own website. The content was surfacing in large language model responses and helping fuel the false claim.

The investigation revealed a direct connection between information the company published, what AI was repeating, and the narrative circulating across news and social media.

It also gave the communications team a concrete place to intervene. The company controlled the webpage contributing to the confusion.

The finding changed the response: correcting the public conversation also meant addressing the outdated information feeding it.

Turning the finding into action

PeakMetrics recommended updated copy for the webpage, along with a public response to correct the record.

Those recommendations addressed two parts of the problem together. Updating the page tackled the outdated source information. The public response addressed the claim already reaching audiences through coverage and social conversation.

For the communications team, this provided a focused course of action. It could explain the facts while addressing a source that was helping the false story persist.

What changed for the customer

The case study shows that the narrative was corrected, the spread of misinformation across news and social slowed, and reputational impact was limited. The brand was able to respond before the false story had more opportunity to define the conversation.

The practical lesson extends beyond this incident. An old webpage can continue shaping reputation long after it stops receiving internal attention. When its content appears in AI answers, that information can reach audiences in ways a communications team may not see through media monitoring alone.

This is where bringing AI responses, news, and social data together becomes valuable. The team gains a fuller view of how a claim travels and a clearer understanding of where it can act.

For this customer, the benefit was specific: identifying an owned source contributing to the problem and using that finding to guide the correction.

Why these stories matter for GEO and brand reputation

The story shows how a more precise understanding of a narrative can change a communications team’s response.

For the theater chain, the investigation identified outdated information on an owned webpage appearing in AI answers.

AI Perceptions brings that investigative approach to how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and Perplexity describe a brand. Communications teams can track answers over time, measure favorability and messaging, understand what’s being asked, investigate cited sources, and examine those findings alongside news and social conversation.

That helps teams answer the questions these customer stories bring into focus:

• What information is contributing to this portrayal of our brand?
• Where else is the same narrative appearing?
• What can we update, clarify, or correct?
• How do the answers and broader conversation change after we respond?

For communications teams, this is a practical way to put GEO to work. It connects AI monitoring to the reputation decisions they already make every day.

We built AI Perceptions to help teams see those connections and act with better information. As the theater-chain story demonstrates, the most useful discovery may be a source your team already has the ability to change.

See what AI is saying about your brand and where your team can make an impact. Request a demo of AI Perceptions.