The AI Gatekeeper: Why Your Brand Stories Must Break Through
Brands must adapt their storytelling to stay visible in a world where AI shapes what people find.
By Steve Salvador
Seduced by the promise of generative AI and creative automation, brands risk missing a critical truth: in an AI-driven world, it’s original storytelling and reporting that enhances brand visibility through large language models (LLMs). AI doesn’t replace branded content — it amplifies its importance. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok rely on high-quality, original data to shape their responses. Without it, brands risk fading into obscurity. This shift demands a new approach to brand storytelling, with tactics that are optimized for an AI ecosystem.
The Old Playbook Needs a Reset
The social media boom pushed brands to invest heavily in content, moving beyond traditional ads to engage audiences directly on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. But saturation followed fast and differentiation grew harder. Today, the game is evolving fast. LLMs are adding a new layer to discovery, driving an 800% surge in referral traffic in late 2024. They’re go-to query sources, answering questions about your industry, products, or expertise with unprecedented speed. But AI pulls from the web’s data, favoring brands with authoritative, original content. Without it, your brand story won’t surface.
As Olaf Kopp explained in his article about decoding LLMs, “retrieval models play a crucial role…by acting as information gatekeepers. They search through large datasets to identify relevant information for text generation, functioning like specialized librarians who know exactly which ‘books’ to retrieve on a given topic”. If your brand’s content isn’t among those “books,” LLMs won’t cite or mention you, leaving you less visible to AI-driven conversations.
The Risk of Inaction
LLMs are reshaping the web, often delivering “zero-click” results that keep users from visiting brand sites. However, without fresh, high-quality content on these same sites, as well as channels like YouTube, your brand risks losing ground to competitors whose data LLMs deem credible and relevant to train their models, diluting your reputation and authority.
““Websites in general will evolve to serve primarily as data sources for bots that feed LLMs, rather than destinations for consumers.””
Ellen Mamedov, global director of search engine optimization for Mailchimp, emphasized this shift in a Wall Street Journal article. She emphasized the importance of brand content being refreshed and up-to-date, or risk being left behind.
Making Your Content AI-Memorable
This isn’t about churning out more content — it’s about making it smarter. Video, with its multimodal depth (visuals, audio, text), becomes a powerhouse here, feeding AI the data it craves. Descriptive metadata, tags, and transcripts aligned with user queries ensure AI links your brand to relevant topics. Backend tactics like entity optimization help AI parse and prioritize your material. Both earned media and optimized owned content on your site or YouTube can influence AI, but only the latter lets you control the narrative.
Brand-owned storytelling is your lifeline. Unlike earned media, where your message might shift, owned content shapes what AI knows. A video showcasing your innovation, paired with sharp optimization, doesn’t just reach people — it defines your AI presence.
The time is now to stay ahead. Brands must:
Focus with Intent: Craft stories that tackle common AI queries
Optimize for Retrieval: Use clear titles, structured formats, and rich metadata to make content AI-friendly
Stay Consistent: Regular high-quality output is essential to keep your brand relevant and authoritative.
By refining your approach and doubling down on brand-owned content, you work to ensure AI understands and amplifies stories on your terms, not someone else’s.