Don’t ignore your personal brand online: here are the three risks you’re taking.
Most business leaders underestimate just how much their personal brand impacts their success—today, tomorrow, and for the long haul.
If you’re not actively managing how Google and AI understand, represent, and recommend you, you’re taking three significant risks.
1. You lose business today
Every day, AI engines like Google, ChatGPT, and Copilot are having billions of conversations. They’re recommending experts, solutions, and leaders to decision-makers.
“If I don’t take care of my personal brand, the machine will think someone else is the most credible person in my field—and they’ll recommend them instead of me.”
Even if you’re more qualified, if the algorithms don’t understand that, you’re invisible. That’s leads lost. Revenue missed. Competitors winning business you should have earned.
2. You limit your career pivots tomorrow
Today you’re a founder. Tomorrow, you may want to invest, advise, write a book, or speak globally. But if your online profile locks you into your current narrative, it can hold you back.
“If my reputation is solid, I can pivot my career. If it’s not—if the machines misunderstand me—I’m stuck.”
Whether it’s a career shift or a reputation rebuild, if AI sees you as the person you used to be, not who you are becoming, that next chapter becomes harder to write.
3. You lose control of your legacy
This is the one few of us think about—but it matters.
“What AI and search engines say about me affects my daughter, my ex-wife, my family. When I die, what will people remember about me? That’s my legacy.”
If you don’t take control of your personal brand today, you’re letting the machines—and others—decide how you’ll be remembered. Your legacy should be yours to shape, not something stitched together by fragmented facts and AI hallucinations.
Whether you’re looking to grow your business, shift your career, or protect your reputation long-term, your personal brand is now a critical business asset.
If you’re not actively managing it, you’re already falling behind.
Bad bonus: You risk damaging your reputation through AI hallucinations and mistaken identity
AI systems and search engines are getting smarter—but they still make mistakes. They can hallucinate (invent) details that never happened or they could easily confuse you with someone else who shares your name.
“How does Google know the circus clown named Jason Barnard isn’t me? If I don’t clarify that, the machine might decide it is.”
If AI misrepresents your background, attributes someone else’s career to you—or invents information that’s simply false—that damages trust. And in high-stakes business, trust is everything.
You can’t afford for AI to get it wrong.
The only way to prevent that is to proactively define who you are, what you do, and why you’re credible—across every relevant platform and in a way machines can understand.
