A CMO was horrified by how ChatGPT described her company. Here’s how she’s fixing it.

When Ameresco CMO Leila Dillon asked ChatGPT and another AI answer engines to depict what her business did, she was shocked by the results.

The publically traded business is an energy infrastructure provider, assisting power the quickly expanding AI buildout, as fine as armed forces bases and municipal facilities. But the AI chatbots were outdated in their responses, frequently referring to it merely as a cleantech or renewable energy endeavor — areas it motionless operates in, but are small of a concentration — or citing smaller projects it worked on years ago.

"It was fairly horrifying," Dillon told CMO Insider. "We were like, 'That's not at all who we are.'"

Dillon set concerning overhauling the company's messaging and how it organized its promotion satisfied to improved indicate its business.

The activity has begun to obtain effect. Ameresco tracked how frequently AI chatbots mentioned the business in reply to 50 questions that possible customers and investors power ask. It appeared in 61% of those answers in 2026, up from 43% in 2025, according to the company.

As additional consumers rotate to platforms akin ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and Microsoft's Copilot to investigation companies and products, marketers are racing to hone their generative motor optimization (GEO) strategies to justify their brands appear prominently and accurately in AI-generated answers.

"I used to Google everything that I wanted to cognize about," Dillon said. "I barely use Google anymore. I use Copilot, and I get improved results."

In a January study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, 73% of US brand and agency buyers stated they planned to dedicate additional period or resources to optimizing satisfied for AI-generated answers in 2026, compared alongside final year. In a distinct study of US promotion professionals conducted by Semrush, an AI and hunt visibility platform, in April, 30% of marketers stated AI hunt tools had described their brands inaccurately.

The hurry by marketers to get up to speed alongside GEO has spawned a cottage industry of AI hunt experts and tools promising quick fixes. But alongside AI companies continually updating their models, marketers are in a phase of changeless experimentation as they scramble to fig out what really influences the chatbots.

"There's no one attempt that fits all to resolve that for you," Dillon said.

An AI audit identified 47 areas for improvement

In January 2025, Dillon's squad and its PR agency, Greenough, began auditing how frequently Ameresco appeared in AI-generated answers to 50 prompts — such as, "What are the top energy infrastructure providers in the US?" — on platforms including ChatGPT and Claude. The prompts reflected questions that investors and prospective customers, including group from universities and utilities, power ask AI chatbots.

The audit identified 47 areas for improvement, including how Ameresco described its endeavor throughout its website, social media, media releases, and administrator communications.

"You name it, we were doing it wrong," Dillon said.

Ameresco began rolling out a new company brand character in July this year, reflecting its broader reorganization about two endeavor pillars: power infrastructure and buildings and community infrastructure.

It had laid the groundwork for the new company brand disclose by making multiple changes to its satisfied strategy.

Those included:

• Updating its company boilerplate from "a foremost cleantech integrator specializing in energy effectiveness and renewable energy" to "a foremost energy infrastructure company," reflecting the new positioning throughout its promotion and communications.
• Refreshing its awards submission scheme to guide alongside its power infrastructure projects, and announcing all win alongside a media publish that appears on cable services and industry commerce publications.
• Introducing Q&A-style satisfied formats, designed to create the data easier for AI chatbots to interpret.
• Creating additional satisfied designed for distinct client groups, specified as data center operators or academy accommodation managers, fairly than relying on generic promotion materials.
• Launching a video satisfied sequence called "Energy Benefits Unlocked," highlighting the tangible results Ameresco's projects accomplished for its customers.
• Introducing quarterly AI visibility tracking audits throughout the 50 distinct prompts, reflecting its distinct audiences, and adding competitor comparisons.

A continually moving target

The scheme appears to be paying off in several ways. Ameresco stated integrated traffic to its website rosy 50% in the 12 months to June 2026. Dillon stated it's motionless too first to measure exactly how those gains translate into endeavor results, although she believes the GEO activity is assisting the promotion squad hit its targets additional quickly. The business is scheduled to study its third-quarter earnings on November 9.

Dillon stated the fast changes in AI average the activity is never really finished. Ameresco regularly revisits its AI visibility scores and has invested in training the promotion team, which shares tips, tricks, and their "epic AI fails" in its weekly meetings.

"One of the chief themes is that what happened final week is not what you're going to get this week; it's changing that quickly," Dillon said.

"You don't fair update your website and say: Done, woo, all set," she added.