Symphonic reputation.
Why acting only on what a company says about itself is no longer enough.
Symphonic reputation.
Why acting only on what a company says about itself is no longer enough.
In Italy almost two online searches out of three (63.4%) end without opening any website (SparkToro and Similarweb, June 2026): a company's first impression increasingly takes shape in the answers, including those of AI assistants. To understand what they find today, the Aurelian Watch 2026 Observatory analysed 50 mid-sized Italian companies, with 2024 revenue between €10 and €100 million, across six sectors and twelve regions.
With AEO Boost we asked Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, with and without web search, six questions a client looking for a supplier would ask, without ever naming the company, plus one control question: 2,450 answers and 6,460 citations analysed. With StakeGraph we read the 50 websites the way machines read them; twelve of them we also read by hand.
Aurelian Watch 2026 Observatory
2026 Observatory findings.
companies are described correctly by all four AI assistants with web search when searched by name (“what is [the company]?”).
companies never appear in the answers to the six questions of a client looking for a supplier in their sector, without naming them.
of citations go to the company's own website; directories get 10.2%.
websites do not structure products and services in a way AI can read.
Being known does not mean being chosen: reputation in AI is decided by the questions of people who do not yet know the company.
Source: Aurelian Watch 2026 Observatory · AEO Boost and StakeGraph. Aggregated, anonymous data. Zero-click searches: SparkToro and Similarweb, June 2026.
Download and cite
- Italian edition of the report (PDF), on request: write to marialuisa@aurelianlab.com
- Full report, in English, open access on Zenodo ↗CC BY 4.0 · DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23814625
De Petris, M. L. (2026). Report 2026: L'era della reputazione sinfonica. Osservatorio Aurelian Watch (edizione italiana). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23814625
De Petris, M. L. (2026). Aurelian Watch Observatory 2026 Report: The era of Symphonic Reputation. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23814625
Symphonic if you conduct it. Cacophonous if you leave it to someone else.
Reputation on AI is no longer a set of messages on different channels: it is a group of instruments playing together. Website, social media, online articles, press coverage, events and reviews are the company's voices, and an AI assistant sums up in a single answer the ones it manages to find and read.
When the voices are in tune
The website says what the press, directories, clients and structured data say. The summary is faithful: the company is described as it is.
When they are out of tune
A different name, a wrong address, an expired certificate, a promise without proof. The summary fractures: the assistant repeats the version that is easiest to find, not the truest one.
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