Why it matters
AI assistants form their picture of you from everything written about you, not just your own site. A brand mentioned often, in the right contexts, becomes a "known entity" that engines can confidently recommend: the unlinked mention is quietly becoming what the backlink used to be.
How it works
Systems associate your name with topics based on the company you keep in text: the publications, the co-mentioned brands, the sentiment. Consistency helps: one canonical name, described the same way everywhere, accumulates; scattered variants dilute.
What to do about it
Do the things that get you talked about in your category's watering holes, and standardise the boilerplate description everyone copies. Monitor mentions monthly alongside citations; they move together.
