Reviews, forums and online sentiment have long been treated as a customer service issue: something to monitor, respond to and keep separate from the marketing plan. AI search is changing that. When a customer searches for your brand, the first thing they often see now is an AI-written summary of what the internet says about you.
In September, the share of branded Google searches showing an AI Overview jumped from about 26% to more than 80%, according to DemandSphere data reported by Search Engine Land. For many brands, that summary now sits above their website and their ads.
What changes when AI writes the first impression
An AI Overview doesn't quote your homepage. It pulls together what it finds across reviews, forums, listings, news coverage and your own site, and condenses it into a few sentences. Your messaging is one input among many, and often not the loudest one.
That shifts where brand perception is formed. A strong campaign can still drive the search, but the answer a customer reads next is built from your reputation: how customers describe you, which problems keep coming up, and how consistently your story is told across the places AI reads.
Why more paid search won't fix the summary
The instinct is to win back the top of the page with more paid search. That can be part of the answer, especially for high-intent terms where competitors bid on your name. But a paid listing sits next to the summary. It doesn't change what the summary says.
If the AI Overview repeats a recurring complaint or an outdated description of your business, more spend only places your ad beside it. You can't outbid a summary built from your own reputation.
Four places to invest upstream
1. Treat reviews and sentiment as marketing inputs.
When reviews live only with customer service, they're handled one at a time. When marketing owns and reports on them alongside other brand measures, patterns surface earlier, and they can inform messaging, offers and channel decisions.
2. Tell one consistent story everywhere AI looks.
Your website, business listings, profiles and third-party coverage should describe the business the same way: what you do, who it's for and what makes it different. Inconsistent or outdated information is exactly what a summary tends to repeat.
3. Fix the problems customers keep raising.
If the same complaint appears across reviews and forums, it will appear in the summary. Better messaging won't cover a real problem. Resolving it changes what customers say, and over time, what AI says about you.
4. Earn coverage from sources you don't control.
Independent reviews, press, partner mentions and community conversation carry weight precisely because brands can't write them. Building that presence takes longer than buying media, but it compounds, and it's what AI tends to trust.
Brand and performance, connected again
Brand and performance marketing have long been planned and measured separately. AI search ties them back together: how customers talk about you now shapes how customers find you. Teams that plan reputation, content and paid search together will have far more say in what customers see first.
Questions to ask your team
What does an AI Overview say today when someone searches for our brand name?
Who owns reviews and customer sentiment, and does marketing see that data?
Is the business described the same way across our site, listings and profiles?
Which customer complaints come up most often, and who is responsible for fixing them?
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