First Published: 04 August, 2026
The Search Result I Did Not Know I Had Written
Yesterday, when I googled myself, my AI summary was accurate. It identified my current role, surfaced relevant work, linked to articles I had written and conferences where I had spoken.
That should not have surprised me. Managing narrative is what I do as a marketer. Yet it did, because I had never consciously managed my own digital footprint. Neither do most marketers.
We spend our working lives shaping how other people's brands are understood. We audit tone of voice, refine messaging and obsess over first impressions. Yet many of us have never applied that same discipline to ourselves.
The challenge becomes even greater when you move countries or even organisations. Like many migrants, I spent years rebuilding my professional reputation from scratch. Moving to New Zealand meant leaving behind a career, a network and a body of work that carried little visibility here. Staying relevant meant publishing, speaking and contributing to industry conversations that others could discover. It turns out this was also creating the evidence that AI systems now use to describe me.
Having an uncommon name, Moumita Das Roy, especially in this part of the world, worked in my favour. There was little risk of mistaken identity. That won't be true for everyone. If you share your name with others, consistent, credible and verified references become even more important.
When someone searches for you today, they see more than a list of links. They see an AI-generated summary assembled from your LinkedIn profile, published work, conference biographies, media mentions and other relevant sources. It synthesises what it finds and presents a version of you.
However, not every part of that version is in our control. AI systems draw on publicly available information created by others, where the rules governing data use and privacy may vary across jurisdictions. That makes maintaining accurate, authoritative public information even more important.
The Uncomfortable Part
We spend our careers advising brands to stay current, publish content consistently and actively manage reputation. If your own AI summary is still pulling from a five-year-old bio or a role you left a few jobs ago, that is more than a personal branding issue. It raises a question about professional credibility.
Clients, employers, and collaborators now read an AI-generated introduction before visiting your social profile or CV. If you advise others on brand strategy, it is fair to expect that your own digital narrative reflects the same.
How the Summary Gets Built
Many modern AI search experiences rely on some form of retrieval-augmented generation rather than on information stored during training alone. When someone asks about you, the system first retrieves material from across the web. Then it generates a response based on what it considers the most reliable evidence.
Retrieval and generation are separate challenges. Even when information about you exists online, conflicting sources can still produce an incomplete or misleading summary.
The concept doing most of the work here is corroboration. Modern AI systems generally place greater confidence in information corroborated across independent sources than in claims made only by you.
A well-maintained LinkedIn profile is important, but it is only one piece of the puzzle.
Make the Facts Corroborate, Not Just Exist
Consider your job title. If your LinkedIn profile says you are the Head of Brand, a conference bio lists you as a Marketing Director, and an industry profile goes back to an earlier role, the system must reconcile conflicting versions of you. It may omit details it cannot confidently resolve.
Consistency is more important than optimisation. Before an AI system evaluates your expertise, it will establish your identity. Auditing your title, professional focus and even your name across platforms helps create a consistent professional record rather than a collection of disconnected fragments.
Earned Signal Outweighs Owned Signal
Many AI systems appear to assign greater weight to independent corroboration than to self-published claims, for the same reason a journalist values an external source over a subject describing themselves.
Your LinkedIn profile is one piece of evidence. A trade publication with your quote, a conference website with you as a listed speaker, a colleague referencing your contribution in a published case study or an interview discussing your work are independent signals that reinforce one another.
This is why a guest article or respected industry interview can contribute more to an AI-generated profile than a carefully polished "About Me" page. Visibility is no longer enough. Verifiability has become the new currency of reputation.
Correcting an inaccurate AI summary usually starts with correcting the evidence. If outdated or conflicting information is repeated across multiple sources, first update the underlying profiles, biographies and publications you can control. Seek corrections to third-party sources where possible. AI systems generally reflect the available evidence more than they rewrite it.
Specificity Is What Gets Extracted
One of the greatest ironies is that marketers often undermine us through the language we use.
We are trained to write polished, brand-safe copy. Yet statements such as "passionate about building brands" say little for an AI system to verify confidently.
Instead, "led the repositioning of Brand X, increasing market share from 12% to 18% over three years" is a specific claim connected to an outcome. It provides something that can be corroborated. Think about the language you would use in a strong CV: specific, measurable and verifiable.
A Quick AI Summary Audit
None of this is about gaming AI. As marketers, we have become experts at helping organisations build discoverability, credibility and trust. In an AI-first world, we need to apply that same discipline to ourselves.
For me, rebuilding a career in a new country became more than a resilience exercise. It involved creating a body of work that others could find, verify and build upon. Along the way, it also led to recognition as a LinkedIn Top Voice. Those habits now allow AI systems to tell an accurate story about who I am. That was never my objective, but it has become an unexpected advantage.
The question is no longer whether someone can find you online. It is whether the evidence they find allows an AI system to describe you accurately.
So, marketers, have you recently searched yourself? Not the old-fashioned way, but the new way. What story is AI telling about you?
In the next part, we will compare how platforms such as Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity retrieve, rank and refresh information and why the timing can vary dramatically depending on the platform, source and retrieval method. Will also explore the next reputation frontier: multimodal AI, voice recognition, deepfakes, privacy and control.
About the Author:
The Marketing Association exists for our members, and the community around us shapes everything we do. Our Thought Leader Working Groups are made up of members who volunteer their time to represent different areas of marketing and share what’s really happening on the ground. Moumita is a Thought Leader in our Digital, AI & Social Thought Leader Working Group. The Group's mission is to lead and grow the understanding, use and value that marketers, agencies and suppliers gain from best practice digital, AI & social marketing.
Moumita Das Roy is a marketer, sustainability storyteller, and LinkedIn Top Voice working at the intersection of communications, purpose, and the built environment. She is the Commercial Communications Manager at Dulux and helps translate complex sustainability and product narratives into clear, human stories for architects, designers, builders, and industry professionals. Her career spans global companies such as Ogilvy and BBDO, Virgin Mobile, The Walt Disney Company, and purpose-led organisations, both internationally and in Aotearoa.
In this article, Moumita explores why marketers need to manage their personal digital footprint with the same discipline they apply to brand strategy. In an AI-first search environment, professional reputation is increasingly shaped not just by what we say about ourselves, but by what AI systems can retrieve, corroborate and confidently summarise from independent, credible sources. Drawing on Moumita's experience of rebuilding her professional visibility in New Zealand, it makes the case that consistency, specificity and verifiable evidence are now essential to how we are discovered and understood.
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