Not long ago, the journey to finding a business partner usually began with a Google search. A chief executive looking for a strategic communications agency, law firm or management consultant would compare websites, read reviews, ask trusted colleagues for recommendations and eventually build a shortlist. Search engines helped people find information. People made the decisions.
That process is changing far more quickly than many businesses realise. Increasingly, the first question is being asked in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Microsoft’s Copilot or Google’s AI Overviews. “Which strategic communications firms in Kenya have experience with financial services?” “Who are the most credible real estate developers in Nairobi?” “Which agencies specialise in crisis communications?” In many cases, the answer produced by AI becomes the shortlist before a search engine is ever opened.
Most organisations assume this is simply another SEO challenge. It isn’t. Google was built to help people find information. Large language models are expected to answer questions. To do that, they need enough confidence in the information they find to recommend one organisation over another. That is a fundamentally different problem, and one that many leadership teams have yet to recognise.
This also explains why many capable businesses never appear in AI generated recommendations. The issue is rarely that they lack expertise. More often, they lack publicly available evidence that allows AI to recognise that expertise. An organisation may have delivered exceptional work for years, built strong client relationships and developed deep industry knowledge, yet leave behind very little information that independently confirms those strengths. The business knows what it has achieved. Existing clients know it too. AI does not.
Many of the conversations around AI visibility miss this point entirely. Advice such as improving your Google Business Profile, publishing more blog articles or collecting online reviews is not wrong. It is simply designed for a different kind of search. Those tactics remain valuable when someone is looking for a restaurant, a pharmacy or a hotel nearby. They become far less important when a board member asks ChatGPT to recommend a communications firm with experience managing corporate reputation, or when an investor asks Gemini to identify trusted renewable energy developers operating in East Africa.
AI is not behaving like a search engine. It is behaving more like an analyst conducting due diligence. It compares your website with media coverage, executive commentary, conference presentations, research reports, case studies and references from other credible organisations. It looks for consistency. It looks for specificity. Most importantly, it looks for evidence that extends beyond your own marketing.
This is why public relations and strategic communications are becoming increasingly important in the AI era. For decades, earned media was valued because it influenced public perception. Today it serves another purpose. A quote in Business Daily, an interview with a national broadcaster, a contribution to an industry report or a keynote at a respected conference becomes part of the public record that AI systems use to understand who your organisation is and whether others consider it credible. As Inc. recently observed, media coverage is increasingly influencing the information AI models rely on when generating answers. That should change how leadership teams think about communications. It is no longer just about visibility. It is about building an evidence base.
The same principle applies to positioning. Businesses have spent years describing themselves as innovative, trusted and customer focused. Those claims have become so common that they distinguish almost no one. AI has the same problem. If every company makes identical promises, there is very little to separate them. Organisations that consistently explain who they serve, what problems they solve and where they have demonstrable expertise leave behind a much clearer signal than those relying on broad marketing language. Precision is becoming a competitive advantage because it helps both people and AI understand exactly what your business stands for.
Consistency matters just as much. It is remarkable how many organisations tell a different story depending on where you encounter them. The website describes one business, the company profile describes another, executive LinkedIn profiles introduce different messages, while media interviews focus on entirely different strengths. To a prospective client, that creates uncertainty. To AI, it reduces confidence. Businesses that are consistently recommended tend to present the same strategic narrative across every credible touchpoint.
For Kenyan businesses, this presents a significant opportunity. Most organisations are still approaching AI visibility as a technical challenge rather than a strategic communications challenge. They are investing in optimisation while overlooking authority. Yet the businesses that appear most consistently across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews are rarely those producing the greatest volume of content. They are the organisations that have spent years building a credible public record through thought leadership, earned media, research, executive visibility and consistent brand positioning.
The question leadership teams should now be asking is not whether AI can find their business. It is whether AI has enough independently verifiable evidence to recommend that business with confidence when someone asks for the best organisations in their category. Those are fundamentally different questions. One is about discoverability. The other is about trust.
As AI becomes an increasingly common starting point for procurement, investment research and professional recommendations, that distinction will matter far more than many organisations currently appreciate. The businesses that earn recommendations from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google’s AI Overviews will not necessarily be those with the largest marketing budgets or the highest search rankings. They will be the organisations that have invested in becoming credible long before someone asked AI who they should trust.
