The CCO’s New Mandate: Reputation in the Age of AI

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has become the corporate fixation of the moment. Across boardrooms, the early AI conversation sounds remarkably similar: How much time can we save? What can we automate? Where can we reduce costs?

From automated customer service to content-creating agents, executive teams are racing to unlock efficiency, productivity and speed. That focus is understandable and incomplete.

While organizations are looking internally at how AI changes the way work gets done, a far more consequential shift is happening externally: AI is influencing how companies are perceived. Increasingly, stakeholders encounter organizations not through a homepage, a trained representative or an article, but through an algorithmic summary, a synthesized answer or an AI-generated narrative that no one inside the company explicitly wrote.

This is not limited to general public inquiries online where an AI overview is presented. AI is increasingly being integrated into government functions, the workplace—from insurance to financial institutions and health care—and compliance or rating systems like environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting. AI is now acting as a mediator, influencing not just whether customers can discover the brand, but also companies’ everyday business functionality and the environment around them.

Stakeholders are no longer just “finding” companies; they are asking AI systems to explain them. Some tools and conversational search platforms synthesize vast amounts of information into a single authoritative-sounding answer. This means reputation is increasingly shaped by what AI systems infer, not just what organizations publish. Traditional search engine optimization (SEO) and public relations logic give way to something new: ensuring that large language models have accurate, high-quality and consistent signals about who you are and what you do.

When an AI-generated response misstates a company’s values, overpromises on a product or invents a controversy, the reputational impact is external, immediate and very human. A hallucination by a customer service bot or a biased algorithm affecting access or outcomes is not a technical issue; it is a headline risk. It triggers legal exposure, regulatory scrutiny and reputational fallout all at once. By the time communications teams are brought in, the damage may already be done—amplified by algorithms and difficult to unwind. When this happens, customers don’t blame the model; they blame the brand.

This creates a dual mandate for leaders. AI must be governed not only as an operational capability, but also as a new reputation environment—one that shapes perception, credibility and risk in ways most organizations are not yet prepared to manage.

Strategic Imperatives for Chief Communications Officers in the AI Reputation Environment

1. Become the Steward of AI-Shaped Perception
   Communications leaders must understand how AI systems surface information about their organizations and actively influence that ecosystem. This includes strengthening data integrity, investing in credible content, and ensuring that authoritative sources reinforce reality rather than distort it.
2. Institutionalize Cross-Functional AI Governance
   AI strategy is no longer the sole purview of chief technology officers (CTOs) and chief information officers (CIOs). It demands a cross-functional working group including communications, technology, legal, and risk. CCOs are uniquely positioned to help formalize governance models where these functions anticipate issues together instead of responding in silos. When these functions operate in lockstep, organizations can shape outcomes rather than react to them.
3. Prepare for the “Everyday AI Moment”
   Not every AI issue will be a crisis, but many will be public. Small inaccuracies, unexpected outputs, or confusing interactions will occur regularly. Organizations need playbooks that assume AI will engage stakeholders imperfectly, and that transparency and correction—not silence—preserve trust.

The Reputation Advantage Ahead

AI is no longer just accelerating how companies operate. It is reshaping how they are understood. Organizations that succeed in this next chapter will treat AI not merely as a productivity engine, but as a new reputation environment—one requiring intentional stewardship and shared accountability across the enterprise. For CCOs and executive teams, the opportunity is clear: As AI transforms the enterprise, it can also become a source of reputation strength if leaders choose to manage it that way.