Havas Tool Lets You See Your Brand Through ChatGPT’s Eyes

By The Malketeer

For two decades, marketers have chased Google rankings, pouring budgets into SEO and SEM.

But what happens when consumers stop searching and start asking AI?

That’s the future Havas Media Network (HMN) UK is preparing for with the launch of Brand Insights AI, a new tool that shows brands how they are ranked and represented on six leading large language (LLM) models.

The LLMs include OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity’s Sonar, xAI’s Grok and China’s fast-rising DeepSeek.

The tool, part of Havas’ £345m (RM1.968 Billion) global investment in artificial intelligence and technology, plugs directly into the group’s Converged AI operating system.

It gives marketers a consolidated view of their brand across LLMs, analyses the content driving those outputs, and recommends fresh content strategies to stay relevant in this AI-first discovery era.

“The way AI platforms are surfacing information is rapidly evolving. With AI becoming the default interface for search and discovery, brands need to adapt and optimise for the new discovery landscape,” said Paul Bland, chief digital officer at HMN UK.

What Does AI Say About Brands in Malaysia?

The Malaysian consumer has been quick to embrace AI.

According to Telenor Asia, 89% of Malaysian internet users now use AI daily, up from 75% in 2024.

This includes everything from financial tools to fitness apps — and increasingly, conversational AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini.

For local brands, this means consumer discovery and decision-making may soon bypass search engines entirely.

Imagine a shopper asking ChatGPT, “What’s the best broadband plan in Malaysia?” or “Which banks are trusted for home loans?”

The answers won’t be a list of clickable links but a distilled, AI-generated response.

That raises a critical new question: What does AI say about your brand and does it reflect what you want consumers to hear?

Local Sectors Most at Risk

• Telcos and Broadband Providers With intense competition between Maxis, CelcomDigi, U Mobile and Unifi, brand differentiation often hinges on consumer perception. If AI tools consistently surface one provider over others, the battle for market share could tilt.
• Banks and Financial Services Trust and reliability are key. If platforms like ChatGPT pull old controversies or incomplete data about a bank, it could undermine carefully built reputations.
• E-commerce Players Platforms like Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop are household names. But how will AI rank them when a consumer asks about “the most reliable online shopping platform in Malaysia”?
• Healthcare and Insurance With consumers already turning to AI for medical advice, healthcare providers and insurers risk being misrepresented if their brand narratives aren’t clearly present in trusted sources AI draws from.

From SEO to AIO (AI Optimisation)

The old playbook of buying keywords and polishing metadata won’t cut it.

Brand Insights AI instead shows which sources are informing AI answers from media coverage to reviews and third-party reports.

This is a turning point for Malaysian marketers who have traditionally invested in PR, advertorials and search marketing.

Now, the new mandate is AIO: AI Optimisation — ensuring the right stories and brand assets live in the datasets that AI models consume.

Havas says it has already conducted over 200 analyses for 50 brands globally, offering recommendations to plug visibility gaps and align messaging with the way LLMs surface information.

The Competitive Edge

For Malaysian CMOs, the advantage lies in early adoption.

While multinationals may move fast with global playbooks, local challengers can still carve visibility by ensuring accurate, positive and locally relevant content feeds into the AI ecosystem.

Agencies, too, will need to rethink their role moving beyond campaign execution into AI visibility management, helping clients understand and shape their presence in conversational interfaces.

Malaysia’s digital economy is expected to hit RM350 billion by 2025, and AI will be the invisible layer filtering how consumers interact with brands.

The new competitive frontier is clear: Not what’s on page one of Google, but what ChatGPT, Gemini or DeepSeek say when asked about you.

For brands here, the time to ask “What does AI know about me?” is now before those AI-driven perceptions harden into the default truth.