WHY COMPANIES CAN NO LONGER STAND BY AND WATCH

by Giampiero Mandraffino, Head of Market Intelligence Intarget

Artificial Intelligence is profoundly transforming the way consumers search, decide, and interact with brands. It’s no longer just about tools like ChatGPT or voice assistants: AI is now an invisible yet powerful filter operating in social feeds, search engines, recommended content, and chatbots. It is a new touchpoint, often a decisive one, that reprocesses and interprets information on behalf of the user, influencing their opinions, choices, and brand perception.

In this scenario, companies must learn to “be read” by AIs, understand how they are represented, and with which narratives they are competing. To address this challenge, Intarget has developed BAIS, a proprietary system capable of analyzing AI’s impact on brands, offering both strategic and operational insights.

A profound change in consumption and information

Until recently, people searched for information in a mostly linear way: they queried Google, visited a few sites, read reviews, and maybe went to a store or e-commerce site. Today, the informational and decision-making journey is much more fluid, fragmented, and generative. More and more often, users:

• Rely on AI tools to obtain summaries and personalized advice, drastically reducing the time spent on comparative research;
• Interact with language models to get answers, bypassing traditional editorial and advertising content;
• Build their opinions starting from automatically generated content that dynamically adapts to the user’s context, intent, and language.

All of this radically changes brand visibility, their positioning in conversations, and the ability to influence perception and choice.

Why it’s crucial to monitor AI as a new touchpoint

AI is becoming a new intermediary layer between the brand and the consumer, capable of reprocessing, interpreting, and filtering information. This means companies can no longer limit themselves to monitoring traditional media or classic digital channels: they must understand how AI “sees” the brand, how it tells its story, which sources it uses, and which narratives it competes with.
Failing to do so means giving up a fundamental piece of the consumer’s mental map. It means letting others — or unsupervised algorithms — decide how the brand is represented at the moment the user formulates their question, often in an advanced stage of the decision-making process.

BAIS: Intarget’s proprietary approach to analyzing AI’s impact on brands

To meet this challenge, Intarget developed BAIS, a proprietary system that leverages Artificial Intelligence to analyze and quantify brand presence in generative contexts, providing actionable insights into user behavior and the evolving competitive landscape.
BAIS is structured into 6 phases:

1. Collection of questions submitted to AI tools
2. Analysis of responses generated using NLP
3. Calculation of the generative share of voice (Brand Artificial Intelligence Score)
4. Segmentation of the motivations behind mentions
5. Prediction of visibility and positioning trends
6. Visualization of results through a dynamic dashboard

With BAIS, marketing teams can identify new branding levers, accurately map their clients’ AI-driven journeys, and take targeted action to enhance brand relevance and attractiveness in new conversational environments.

From data to decisions: benefits for our clients

BAIS is not just an analysis tool, but a decision-making accelerator. Here’s what it can offer:

• Early identification of emerging trends in user needs and behaviors;
• Optimization of content and positioning strategies based on what AI deems relevant or recommendable;
• Greater campaign effectiveness thanks to a deeper understanding of decision-making motivations and paths;
• Proactive control of brand image within AI responses and new conversational environments.

Understanding AI to govern its impact

The evolution of generative tools is changing the way brands are perceived and told. Understanding these mechanisms is no longer optional, but a necessary condition for those who want to remain relevant.
In a context where AI filters and transforms access to information, having a tool capable of reading the evolution of brand presence in real time becomes a key competitive advantage. It is on this awareness that the most effective strategies are built.

For brands, the time for passive observation is over. Understanding how AI perceives and represents your brand is the first step to regaining visibility, relevance, and control. With BAIS, Intarget is ready to guide you.