When AI Gets Your Business Wrong and What You Can Do About It

In digital marketing circles, the conversation about AI/LLM tools and their role in business marketing and branding seems endless—because it is. Artificial intelligence and their impact on digital media raise questions about brand creation/projection, AI reputation management, and AI search accuracy particularly when it comes to potential clients or customers finding your business. When AI gets your business wrong, the results can be costly; a malformed AI review or misleading AI description can cost you business, impact your reputation, and take time and resources to repair. Identifying when AI gets your business wrong and what you can do about it makes the corrective action less costly and much less of a headache.

Executive Summary:

• AI and LLM answer engines are limited in their understanding and very often make mistakes when generating reviews and business information.
• Misleading or inaccurate AI reviews and AI answer hallucinations can cost businesses time and money.
• Preventative action to promote and foster accurate information about your business is the best approach.
• Mitigation of misleading AI-generated information is possible but less effective than prevention.
• A professional digital marketing service or fractional CMO can ensure that your business’s online presence is effective, accurate, and resilient.
• Wahha Design may have the answers and services you need, so get in touch.

Why Are AI Reviews Often Inaccurate?

The core reason for inaccuracies in AI reviews often comes down to this: AI isn’t actually intelligent. Rather, it’s a complex set of algorithms for large language model (LLM) machine learning. This is important because unlike human intelligence—which can make inferences and connections between disparate data sets—AI tools often struggle with context. AI/LLM tools scan for syntax, SEO keywords, and both internal and external citations without understanding the source or setting. This makes it easy for these tools to confuse humor, satire, or outright falsehoods with “real” information assuming the former are presented with appropriate AEO/SEO. AI/LLM answer engines also struggle with timeliness, in that they may not differentiate between outdated information and current information as quickly or effectively as a human reader might. This can be especially troublesome for business that have changed ownership or management or locations that have re-branded.

AI Brand Visibility is Multifaceted

It’s a complex issue, as AI-powered answer engines continually comb the internet for information in order to formulate responses to user queries. This is often the source of AI inaccuracies or AI hallucinations and while most of the time these just lead to simple mistakes they can have serious consequences as well. For businesses and business owners, these issues may include AI reviews or responses creating and spreading false information about your business, brand, or storefront.

Fortunately, there are solutions. Let’s look at some of them.

How to Keep Online Business Information Accurate

In order to ensure that online information about your business is accurate and that AI/LLM tools are generating accurate responses and reviews, it’s best to adopt a proactive approach. Prevention is almost always easier and less expensive than cure, but we’ll look at both preventative and amelioratory strategies here:

• The first step is proactive: monitor online reviews and other information carefully! This can often be as simple as regularly reading reviews on search engines, review sites, social media, and local media outlets. Don’t forget that last piece; AI reviews appear everywhere now and no website or outlet is “too small”.
• Populate online spaces with accurate, optimized, and fresh content about your business or brand. This is the most important single step, as AEO/SEO optimized content that’s regularly refreshed and updated is the heart and soul of contemporary digital marketing. While site text content, blogs, and articles are vital, don’t neglect visual content either. Video and photo content plays an increasingly important role in determining good AEO/SEO and that technology is only getting more complex.
• Use Google Alerts to track inaccurate information by setting up alerts for negative or misleading terms + Your Business or Brand Name. Relevant negative terms might include “closure”, “closing”, “discontinued”, “changes”, “complaints”, or “fraud”. This won’t catch all misleading or inaccurate AI-generated content but it will provide a speedy heads-up about especially damaging misinformation.
• Create and foster credibility across your brand and digital presence. This is multifaceted, so feel free to treat it like several separate steps. It may be best to start with online business profiles like the ones found on Google and ensure that they are optimized and accurate. From there, ensure that social media reflects the same integrity and accuracy in both content and reviews. Encouraging good reviews on review sites and platforms while also promptly addressing negative ones is another key component.
• Remember that consistency is key. Information and brand image need to be consistent across all platforms, all of the time—as does your messaging. This requires some effort and expertise as the digital landscape evolves and AEO/SEO requirements continually change but it’s a must-have business function as we move through the second half of the 2020s.

It’s a lot to manage, but the time and resources invested are well worth it to avoid or at least mitigate the issues that come from AI errors around your business. This is where a professional, cutting-edge digital marketing service comes in.

Wahha Design: Digital Marketing Solutions for AI and Beyond

Based in Wilmington, NC but with a global reach, Wahha Design offers digital marketing solutions that work with existing AEO and SEO requirements while staying ahead of the competitive curve. For businesses, the results Wahha delivers are tangible: increased visibility, a more robust and effective digital presence, and more clients moving through the funnel. With a variety of digital marketing and fractional CMO services available, Wahha Design is the force multiplier you need to build your success. The time is now so get in touch and schedule an initial consultation.