Who are you, according to AI? As more people begin to rely on AI tools for information, often in place of traditional search engines, it’s increasingly likely that your name will be part of a prompt. Or, even better, your name will be part of a response when a funder or potential collaborator is searching for just the right expert. Today, it’s entirely possible for someone’s first impression of you to be generated entirely by AI. Regardless of how you feel about this, be aware that you do have some control over how you look in AI-generated outputs.

Think about what you ask about someone you’ve just met or learned of: Who is this person? What kind of work do they do? Is their work relevant to mine? And so on. These are the questions people will be asking about you.

AI can work either for or against you. An LLM can provide accurate biographical information that presents you favorably, but it can also misrepresent you, or omit important details. An inaccurate or unfavorable description of someone is more likely if AI is working with outdated, incomplete, or misleading sources.

In the next three installments of this newsletter, we’ll cover what you can do to tailor your online presence to the reality of AI. Our focus will be on smaller, actionable steps not requiring large investments of time or energy on your part.

To start, we must understand what is meant by “optimize for AI.” You probably are familiar with traditional search engine optimization (SEO). SEO employs strategies to produce higher rankings on search engines. Some of them can help with AI visibility – for example, ChatGPT uses Bing for real-time searches, so ranking higher on Bing improves your exposure on ChatGPT.

However, LLMs are generally trained on massive datasets comprised of publicly available text, licensed content, and trusted web sources. Because these inputs are so large, variable and complex, more nuanced strategies are needed to influence their behavior. In this guide, we’ll cover techniques specifically intended to ensure that you’re represented accurately, favorably and often by AI tools. While these methods are subject to future variability since generative AI is an emerging technology, you’ll still be a step ahead just by being aware of them.

Then, we’ll cover how you can optimize your institutional and lab web pages for AI. These are considered high-trust, authoritative sites, so they’re often a primary source for an LLM. We’ll cover what you can do on Google Scholar and ORCID. And finally, we’ll discuss how you can make your personal website, your LinkedIn profile, social media, conference bios, and other content more AI-friendly.

The cumulative effect of these steps will make you more likely to appear in AI-generated output, and you’ll have greater control over exactly what appears in those results. You’ll be ahead in a world in which AI is increasingly used as a next-gen type of search engine.

For this week, I encourage you to spend a few moments reflecting on your career vision. What would you want an AI-generated summary of you to include? Clarity on this is the most important part of the process. Once you have this direction charted, you’ll be ready to make the recommended updates in the weeks ahead.

Stay tuned.

Framing Your Work and Story — On Purpose

I recorded this video to share why you should get comfortable with deliberately framing your career. If you’ve ever hesitated because it feels inauthentic, this is for you. The AI environment may be new, but the need to shape how you’re seen is as old as communication itself.

When you are ready, here’s how we can help

Need to get your research funded, this year? Check out our 12-week program to get you there.

Check out our storefront where you can access our free Unlocking DOD Funding for University Researchers course and other resources, including for faculty applicants.

Ready to book a call to discuss how our program can support faculty at your institution? Let’s chat!