Contentful has today launched Palmata, a software designed to help business understand and improve how they appear in AI search engines.
Today, the visibility issue has shifted dramatically from traditional web search, with many brands having previously spent decades optimizing for this earlier model.
As customer journey starting points begin to shift toward AI models, CX leaders must now reassess their digital experience strategies to ensure their brands don’t get left behind.
Harry McIntosh, VP of Engineering at Telus Digital, emphasized that now more than ever, organizations need visibility into how AI systems interpret and present their business.
“In AI search, the question that matters is whether AI describes you accurately, because the model answers with total confidence whether it’s right or wrong,” he said.
“Palmata’s Steering Control lets us point it at the specific products, audiences and competitors we care about, so we can see exactly what AI says we do and where it learned it. That’s a much clearer path from insight to action.”
The Rules of Discovery Have Changed
For more than two decades, organizations have built their digital strategies around traditional web search and SEO to guide them through a carefully designed digital experience.
However, the rise of AI-powered search engines has fundamentally changed this model as more users are beginning to interact with AI assistants rather than browsing links.
As a result, a customer’s first impression of a brand could be formed by an AI’s summary before they visit the organization, creating a brand-new visibility challenge.
Due to the LLMs complexity, organizations must be aware on where or if AI systems mention their brand and how accurately they are describing it.
Secondly, CX leaders must reassess their digital strategy and look at designing clear, structured content that is reusable for AI systems, as well as maintaining consistent messaging and monitoring across owned and third-party channels to ensure an accurate representation.
Putting Brands Back in the Driver’s Seat
Contentful release of Palmata is designed to help organizations understand and improve how AI answer engines represent their brand, responding to how customers are now discovering products.
Using the Sounder Discovery Agent, Palmata can analyze publicly available information across a company’s digital footprint to map how they influence AI-generated responses.
The platform also allows teams to focus on specific markets and competitors to build a contextual understanding to generate prioritized recommendations for campaign changes, simulating how they might affect future AI-generated answers.
This tool can be used in marketing and brand management to identify gaps between intent and how AI systems actually describe them, enabling them to prioritize content updates and understand competitive positioning.
By improving a brand’s presence in AI search environments, visibility can be ranked by inclusion and company accuracy within generated answers by optimizing for how AI systems interpret and summarize content.
When brands lose control over first impressions, Palmata gives back those monitoring tools to influence AI-generated impressions through targeted content improvements and feedback loops.
This launch reflects Contentful’s evolving vision for digital experience management in an AI-driven environments, extending its focus toward the emerging layer of AI-mediated discovery.
Karthik Rau, CEO of Contentful, emphasized that today’s digital landscape is reshaping customer decisions even before they meet a brand.
“Contentful was built on the belief that content is the foundation of every digital experience,” he said.
“Today, AI systems increasingly shape how businesses are discovered, understood, and evaluated before a customer ever visits a website. Palmata helps organizations navigate this shift by turning AI discovery risk into a credible plan for growth.
“It gives teams the clarity and intelligence they need to understand their AI reputation and improve it over time.”
Consistency Is the New Competitive Advantage
This product launch enables CX leaders to expand their visibility scope to include cross-channel consistency and knowledge quality, as fragmented or outdated information can directly influence how AI presents a brand.
Leaders will therefore require an integrated approach between content, marketing, product, and data teams, needing to treat external content ecosystems as part of the overall experience layer.
By instilling consistent AI system monitoring to identify gaps and inaccuracies, CX leaders can manage a distributed information footprint that shapes AI-generated perceptions before a customer engages directly.
Speaking with CX Today, Peter Sloterdyk, CMO at Gist, highlights how organizations must ensure their content is consistent, accessible, and influential across every touchpoint.
“I think the overall the global customer experience will be hugely important to maintain, refine and improve across the board,” he said.
“Content will continue to be important but I think where it lives, how it lives, and how it influences all the brand touch points will be what’s so interesting to watch.”
As a result, CX is no longer contained within the website, and now begins wherever an AI forms an answer.
In fact, CX leaders who adapt early will be in a good position to influence how their brand is introduced in moments of discovery, shaping trust and consideration before a competitor enters the conversation.
