The emergence of artificial intelligence in brand listening: from Social Listening to AI Listening.
4 reading minutes
20/01/2026
In recent years, brand listening has established itself as a key tool to understand how consumers and users talk about brands, products and categories. Analysing real conversations has made it possible to detect trends, anticipate risks and enrich market research.
Today, however, the way people search for information and make decisions is changing. As consumers, we are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence systems to inform us, compare options and choose brands.
It is here that brand listening can no longer be limited only to what people are saying and must take a new step forward. From Social Listening we evolve towards AI Listening: a new way to analyze how brands are represented, described and recommended by artificial intelligence systems that already influence consumption decisions.
From traditional brand listening to AI Listening
At Ikerfel we have long been working with social listening as a tool that allows us to enrich and complete the information we collect through other methodologies, such as quantitative studies, qualitative research, customer experience analysis or brand studies.
Social listening gives us spontaneity, real context of conversation and early detection of relevant topics. We have always understood it as one more piece within a broader research system, and not as an isolated methodology. AI Listening starts from this same logic of complementarity, but introduces a key change: we no longer only analyze what people say, but how machines are representing brands when they act as intermediaries of information and recommendation.
what is AI Listening and how does it apply to brand analysis?
AI Listening is a systematic analysis of how a brand, product or category appears in the responses generated by artificial intelligence systems to different types of questions or stimuli. It is not a question of “asking the AI” in a timely manner, but of designing a structured analysis, very similar to a qualitative study.
This analysis is based on questions that simulate real situations of search and decision, whose answers are studied as discourses, comparing patterns, attributes, hierarchies and consistencies. To do this, different platforms of generative AI and conversational assistants are analyzed, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Copilot, as well as other emerging models that consumers already use increasingly as a source of information.
The objective is to understand which brands appear spontaneously, in which contexts they are recommended, which attributes are associated with them, how they position themselves against the competition and which brand story is being reproduced by artificial intelligence.
How artificial intelligence systems influence the purchase decision
More and more consumers are using AI systems to learn about buying options, compare brands, look for seemingly neutral recommendations or resolve doubts before making a decision. Artificial intelligence is thus naturally integrated into the decision-making process, even in the early stages of the journey.
This makes the AI a new brand prescriber, with a real ability to influence. In this context, reputation is no longer built solely on media, social networks or conversations between people, but also on the algorithmic story that AI models generate from the available information.
AI Listening allows you to anticipate this impact and answer key questions: whether a brand is present in those contexts, how AI describes it, what information it highlights or omits, and what opportunities or risks emerge from that representation.
AI Listening as an evolution of social listening in market research
From the perspective of market research, AI Listening does not replace classical methodologies or social listening itself. On the contrary, it complements and extends them.
It provides an advance view of brand perception, allows the analysis of positioning in new contact points and generates strategic insights on how reputation is built in environments mediated by artificial intelligence. Integrated within a broader research approach, AI Listening becomes a particularly valuable tool for brand studies, competitive analysis and strategic reflection.
AI Listening: a new opportunity to understand and manage brands
At Ikerfel, after years of incorporating social listening as an additional source of information for our analysis, we now take one more step and begin to explore and develop AI Listening as a new way to generate relevant knowledge for our clients.
Our goal is to continue to help brands better understand their context, anticipate changes and make more informed decisions in an increasingly complex and technology-mediated environment.
If you are interested in delving into what AI Listening is, how it can be applied to your brand or how to integrate it into a broader research approach, we will be happy to tell you about it.
