Your customers can now investigate your company without visiting your website or clicking a traditional search result.

They can ask an AI platform to compare your company with competitors, summarize customer complaints, research your leadership and identify potential reasons not to do business with you. The resulting answer can shape an opinion before the customer reaches your website.

That changes what CEOs need to monitor. Google results, news coverage, reviews and social media still matter, but an online reputation audit in 2026 should also examine what AI platforms say about your business, which sources support those answers and whether inaccurate or outdated information keeps appearing.

Google reported this year that AI Overviews had more than 2.5 billion monthly active users and AI Mode had surpassed 1 billion monthly users. CEOs should account for this behavior in the same way they learned to pay attention to Google results and online reviews.

I work in online reputation management, and at my company Reputation Pros, we recommend treating a reputation audit as a recurring business process. You do not need sophisticated software to start. You just need the right questions and a system for recording what you find. Here is an audit I recommend.

1. Ask AI the questions your customers might ask

Typing your company name into an AI platform will not tell you enough. Instead, put yourself in the position of a prospective customer conducting due diligence. Ask questions that require the platform to explain what it knows about your company.

Start by copying and customizing this prompt: “I’m considering doing business with [COMPANY NAME]. Research its online reputation as a prospective customer would. Summarize what the company is known for, common positive themes, recurring complaints or criticisms, significant controversies and information that could reasonably affect a customer’s decision. Separate verified facts from allegations or opinions. Where possible, identify the sources supporting each important claim and flag information that may be outdated or uncertain.”

Run the same prompt through several major AI platforms. Do not focus solely on whether the answers sound positive or negative. Look for patterns.

Does the same complaint appear several times? Does one platform emphasize an old controversy? Does another describe your company incorrectly? Which publications, review sites or other sources appear repeatedly?

Record the results. One response does not define your reputation. Differences between platforms can show you where additional investigation is necessary.

2. Check whether AI recommends your company in your category

CEOs naturally focus on branded searches, but customers do not always begin there. Someone looking for a financial adviser, attorney, software company or home services provider may start by asking for reputable companies in a particular market. The customer may then compare two or three businesses before searching any company individually.

Test that part of the journey too. Use questions such as:

• “What are reputable [CATEGORY] companies in [MARKET]?”
• “Which [CATEGORY] companies should I consider for [SPECIFIC NEED]?”
• “Compare [COMPANY] and [COMPETITOR] based on customer feedback, experience, reputation and publicly available information.”
• “What should I investigate before hiring a [CATEGORY] company?”

Pay attention to how your company appears in those answers. Do not assume that an omission means something is wrong. Instead, investigate whether credible online sources clearly establish the expertise, history and services your company claims.

This exercise can reveal a problem that a branded Google search will miss: The information people find about your company may look fine, while the broader information environment barely associates your company with the category you want to lead.

3. Audit the CEO separately from the company

Customers are not the only people conducting online research. Potential employees, investors, vendors and business partners can investigate company leadership before making decisions. A CEO’s online reputation deserves its own audit.

Try this: “Research [CEO’S NAME] as if you were a potential business partner conducting due diligence. Summarize their professional background, current business affiliations, documented accomplishments, controversies, lawsuits or regulatory matters and recurring criticism. Distinguish verified facts from allegations and opinions. Identify the sources supporting significant claims and flag information that appears outdated, conflicting or uncertain.”

Check the basic facts first. Is the current position correct? Are former positions described as current? Are business affiliations accurate? Does the answer confuse the CEO with someone who has a similar name?

Do not ignore an error because it happens to make the CEO look good. An inaccurate award, inflated job title or incorrect company affiliation can create credibility problems just as easily as negative misinformation.

4. Separate criticism from factual problems

Executives sometimes see an unfavorable result and immediately ask how to remove it. Ask whether it is accurate first.

I use five simple classifications when examining reputation issues:

• Accurate
• Inaccurate
• Outdated
• Incomplete
• Unverified

Those categories force you to distinguish between information that damages your reputation and information that you simply dislike.

A legitimate negative customer review requires a different response from a false claim about your company. An accurate article from six years ago requires a different approach from a biography that incorrectly lists an executive’s former employer.

AI can help organize this part of the audit. Copy a concerning response and ask: “Extract every factual claim in the following response that can be independently verified. Organize the claims by Claim, Source Cited, Verification Needed and Potential Business Impact. Do not assume a claim is accurate because it appears in the response.”

Then verify the important claims yourself using reliable sources. Do not use one AI system to declare another AI system correct. Use AI to identify what needs checking. Use primary and authoritative sources to determine what is true.

5. Find the source before trying to fix the answer

An unfavorable AI answer is often the symptom rather than the underlying problem. Investigate the sources behind it.

You may discover an outdated executive biography, an old news article, incorrect directory information, inconsistent company descriptions or customer complaints appearing across multiple sites. Ask the AI platform to show its work when the product supports citations.

You can also use this prompt: “Based only on the sources available in your answer, identify the sources that support the major claims about [COMPANY]. For each source, list the claim it supports, its publication date if available and whether newer authoritative information appears to conflict with it. Do not infer a source if you cannot identify one.”

Then open the sources. I consider this one of the most important steps in a modern reputation audit. Asking “How do we change this AI answer?” too early can send a company in the wrong direction.

Ask a better question: “Why does this information exist?” A factual problem at the source gives you something concrete to investigate.

6. Keep Google in the audit

AI has expanded reputation management, but it has not completely replaced traditional search yet.

Search your company name, executive names and relevant combinations such as your company plus “reviews,” “complaints,” “lawsuit” and other terms a prospective customer might reasonably use.

Look beyond position. A negative article does not become significant simply because it ranks highly. Determine its date, source, context and accuracy. Find out whether multiple independent sources support the underlying claim or whether dozens of pages repeat information originating from a single source.

The same principle applies to positive coverage. Ten websites repeating the same press release do not provide the same independent validation as 10 separate authoritative sources.

Your audit should measure the quality of the information surrounding your company, not simply count positive and negative links.

7. Audit how your company generates reviews

Review management creates another risk CEOs should examine. The Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule took effect in October 2024. It addresses practices including fake or false reviews and incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular positive or negative sentiment.

The FTC sent warning letters to 10 companies in December 2025 over potential violations of the rule and noted that violations can result in substantial civil penalties. Ask your marketing and customer service teams how they request reviews.

Are incentives involved? Does anyone ask specifically for a five-star review? Do employees write reviews? Does an outside vendor manage the process? Does anyone discourage dissatisfied customers from leaving legitimate feedback?

CEOs should understand the answers. I recommend one simple test: Could you comfortably explain your review-generation process to a regulator? If you hesitate, investigate it.

8. Track what changes

Finish the audit by creating a basic spreadsheet. You only need seven columns:

1. Question
2. Platform
3. Key claims
4. Sources
5. Accuracy
6. Risk
7. Action

Run the same core questions every quarter and compare the findings.

Label accurate information and isolated criticism as issues to monitor. Investigate recurring inconsistencies, outdated information and unsupported claims. Prioritize consequential factual errors, impersonation and rapidly spreading false information for action.

Consistency matters more than complexity. The first audit tells you what your reputation looks like today. Repeating the process shows you where it is moving.

A company preparing for an acquisition, leadership change, product launch or other major event may need to run the audit more frequently. Most CEOs can start with a quarterly review and adjust based on the risks they uncover.

Your goal is not to make every search result positive or force every AI platform to praise your company. Neither goal is realistic. Your goal is to know what customers can discover about you, understand where that information comes from and correct factual problems where you legitimately can.

In 2026, people increasingly ask machines to help them evaluate businesses and the people running them. CEOs should know what those machines are finding before an important customer, employee or business partner asks.

Your customers can now investigate your company without visiting your website or clicking a traditional search result.

They can ask an AI platform to compare your company with competitors, summarize customer complaints, research your leadership and identify potential reasons not to do business with you. The resulting answer can shape an opinion before the customer reaches your website.

That changes what CEOs need to monitor. Google results, news coverage, reviews and social media still matter, but an online reputation audit in 2026 should also examine what AI platforms say about your business, which sources support those answers and whether inaccurate or outdated information keeps appearing.