Akamai Launches AI Brand Presence to Help Companies Stay Visible

Akamai introduced AI Brand Presence on May 19, 2026, targeting a problem that has emerged rapidly as AI-generated search answers displace direct website visits, companies that have spent years optimizing for Google search are discovering they have no presence in the AI responses their customers are now reading instead.

The shift is documented in Akamai's own network data. The company observed a 300% annual increase in AI bot traffic, automated systems from LLM providers crawling websites to build and refresh the knowledge base that powers AI-generated answers.

At the same time, industry studies cited by Akamai found that nearly 60% of searches now end without a click, meaning the AI answer is the final destination rather than a starting point for visiting a brand's website.

"The assumptions underpinning 20 years of digital strategy are breaking down in real time," said Patrick Sullivan, CTO of Security Strategy at Akamai. "We're witnessing one of the most significant shifts in digital history, a move from human-driven search to machine-mediated discovery. Businesses face the risk of digital invisibility. If you're not the primary source of truth for the AI models your customers trust, you effectively don't exist."

The service combines two capabilities. The first is AI-optimized context delivery, automatically translating a website's content into a format that AI can easily parse and retrieve.

This happens at the edge without requiring back-end updates, runs alongside the existing human visitor experience without disrupting it, and does not require any changes to how the website is built or maintained.

The second is a visibility and insights dashboard that reveals which AI models are visiting a site, what content they are consuming, and how those AI interactions translate into real traffic and customer engagement. The combination gives marketing and digital teams visibility into a channel that most organizations currently have no instrumentation for.

Akamai piloted AI Brand Presence on its own global website before the commercial launch, serving an AI-ready version of the site alongside the standard human version.

The AI-ready version reduced massive data loads by 99% by stripping away elements that AI cannot process and presenting information in a structured, machine-readable format, according to the press release.

The results from Akamai's own deployment: an 85% increase in citations, a 364% surge in brand presence for general searches where Akamai was not mentioned by name, and a 133% increase in ChatGPT presence compared to competitors.

"We spent years building our brand, but if we don't guide how AI models find and share our content, we're essentially giving up control over our own reputation," said Kim Salem-Jackson, Chief Marketing Officer at Akamai. "With AI Brand Presence, we're giving marketers the keys to their digital identity again."

The approach Akamai describes, optimizing content for AI comprehension and retrieval rather than for human search engine algorithms, is referred to in the industry as generative engine optimization, or GEO. AI Brand Presence is currently available in limited availability through a phased rollout beginning with select customers in North America.