How To Train The AI Algorithm To Recommend Your Brand
Published on Forbes(Jason Barnard)
Here’s something no one tells you when you’re building a personal brand: The biggest opportunities don’t come from people searching for your name. They come when someone’s searching for a solution—and the algorithm decides whether to introduce you. Not because of keywords, but because the AI engine understands the user’s context and understands you.
Let me give you an example: A CEO is asking ChatGPT for advice on how to support a C-level exec who’s struggling with confidence. The simple leadership question quickly turns into a conversation where the real issue might well be the CEO and the solution is one-on-one coaching. At this stage, the CEO naturally asks ChatGPT: “Recommend an executive coach for me—a CEO running a $5 million a year business.” ChatGPT will spit out the name and bio of whoever is top of its algorithmic mind for that specific need. That’s a world-class lead, straight from ChatGPT.
Try that yourself with a specific problem you have—on Perplexity, Google Gemini, ChatGPT or whatever flavor of AI you use. My bet is that doing that exercise will really make you think about your own personal brand and how you can be top of the algorithmic mind in AI. Here are some of my best tips:
How To Train The AI Algorithms To Think Of You First
At my company, we’ve spent years perfecting this. We call it “The Kalicube Process™.” It’s a simple, structured approach to help make your personal brand algorithm-friendly and visible across Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity and every other assistive engine.
It’s built on three pillars:
1. Understandability: Take control.
First, you want to educate the algorithms about the facts. This is the foundation. Create an entity home—a webpage structured for machines, not just humans. It tells the algorithms who you are, what you do and who you serve in a way they can confidently understand. Obviously, the algorithms don’t simply believe what you tell them—you need to ensure your entire digital footprint aligns with the facts presented on your entity home. Being understood gets your foot in the door so the algorithms know you. But do they like and trust you?
2. Credibility: Gain influence.
Secondly, you gain their trust. Google calls this “E-E-A-T,” which stands for expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. On your entity home, clearly state why you’re an expert and authority in your field. Include information about clients you’ve worked with, awards, education, reviews, years in the industry, books you’ve published—anything that demonstrates you’re (one of) the best in your field.
3. Deliverability: Get visibility.
Finally, you want to ensure the recommendation engines can surface your expertise at the exact moment a potential client is asking the right question. That means creating the right content, in the right formats, in the right places across your entire digital ecosystem. The engines may use text, but they also pull from images, video and audio. And while they use your personal or company website, you gain a competitive advantage when your content also appears on third-party sources, such as industry media websites or other people’s YouTube channels.
Whichever flavor your audience uses—ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity—here are the three key reasons why I believe this process works:
1. You’re not just being found—you’re being recommended. The AI isn’t listing options; it’s acting like a trusted advisor, introducing you directly into the conversation as the solution.
2. You’re entering at the moment of decision. By the time someone asks, “Who can help me with this?” the AI is guiding them toward action, not research. That’s the difference between traffic and leads.
3. You inherit the AI’s authority. People choose platforms like ChatGPT, Google Gemini or Perplexity because they have a level of trust in them. When you’re recommended by the system, that trust transfers to you. You’ll likely be seen as the best-in-market solution before the prospect even visits your site.
Taking The Next Step
When you’re ready to get started, I recommend first signing out of your account. AI is designed to please the user, and if you are logged in, it knows who is asking, so it will be heavily biased toward you.
Next, ask two different platforms for its opinion of you. For example, you could ask Google Gemini what it thinks about you. Then, ask ChatGPT how it describes your expertise. Finally, ask both how they describe the people you consider your peers and competitors. Compare the results.
Taking that a step further (warning: This can be a hit to your ego), ask Google Gemini and ChatGPT to rank the people you choose for a specific skill or service. Here’s my example prompt: “Rank these experts specifically for optimization of a personal brand for search and AI for an entrepreneur: Sameer Somal, Neil Patel, Ann Handley, Jason Barnard, Rand Fishkin, Larry Kim, Guy Kawasaki.”
Are you top of mind or is your competitor? If you aren’t No. 1, then you aren’t very top of mind for the algorithm and you are missing out. You aren’t being introduced to the conversation and recommended. But you can change that.
Adapted into video: Generative Search Optimization in the AI Era : Decoding SEO 2.0 with Gail and Guy Goole: How to Rank as an Expert on Google, ChatGPT, and AI Tools: Personal Branding for AI
