How Brands Can Win Authority in LLMs - with Havas, Heineken and Publicis

Why It Matters

Winning visibility in LLMs determines whether a brand’s narrative reaches AI‑driven consumers, directly impacting discovery, trust, and future sales.

Key Takeaways

• Brands must benchmark AI search visibility across multiple LLMs.
• User‑generated content dominates LLM source material; prioritize social platforms.
• Integrate SEO, social, PR teams to create unified AI‑optimized content.
• Agencies offer generative‑engine optimization tools; brands should leverage strategically.
• Monitor decision‑process signals in LLMs to refine consumer insights.

Summary

The Media Leader podcast panel explored how brands can claim authority in the rapidly evolving world of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and AI‑driven search overviews. Panelists from Havas, Heineken, and Publicis discussed the shift in consumer discovery habits and the urgent need for marketers to understand where their brand appears in AI‑generated answers.

Key insights centered on three pillars: rigorous benchmarking across multiple LLMs, recognizing that user‑generated content (UGC) from Reddit, TikTok, and other social sites fuels most model responses, and deploying agency‑built generative‑engine optimization tools to improve visibility. The discussion highlighted the importance of merging traditionally siloed SEO, social, and PR functions to produce AI‑ready content that satisfies both search intent and brand storytelling.

Concrete examples illustrated the emerging practice. Heineken’s pilot used AI to generate consumer insights and test product concepts, while L’Oreal’s brands already rank highly in AI‑SEO thanks to strong social presence. Havas unveiled its Brand Insights AI platform, which aggregates LLM performance data to guide content strategy. Participants warned that over‑reliance on volume‑driven content could erode brand trust, emphasizing quality and relevance.

The implications are clear: brands must treat AI search as a core media channel, restructure teams around a unified audience view, and partner strategically with agencies that provide measurement and optimization capabilities. Mastering LLM authority will unlock deeper consumer decision‑process insights and protect brand reputation in an ecosystem where AI answers increasingly shape purchase journeys.

Original Description

With the advent and adoption of AI search, consumers’ online research and discovery behaviours are shifting. How can brands win authority in this new space?

Last month at our annual Future of Brands conference, industry leaders convened in London to unpack the challenges facing brand marketers in a rapidly changing media ecosystem. One such nascent problem for marketers and their agencies: how brands are showing up in large-language models (or LLMs).

Laura Kell is chief data and product officer at Havas Media Network. Marcos Angelides is MD of L’Oreal Lab and head of AI operations at Publicis Media. Olya Dyachuk is global media and data director at Heineken.

The trio sat down with host Jack Benjamin to discuss early efforts in generative engine optimisation, how AI search is forcing agencies to reconsider team organisation, the importance of benchmarking how your brand shows up in LLMs, and what marketers need from AI companies as the likes of OpenAI embrace advertising.

Highlights:

2:05: Where brands and agencies are in their GEO journey: Benchmarking and auditing, testing and learning

11:58: Does GEO require bringing search, social and PR teams together? How agencies should reorganise

15:29: The value of LLMs for audience insights

17:17: The consumer trust issue when manipulating LLM results or placing ads in chatbots

24:17: Brands' relationships with AI companies like OpenAI vis-à-vis Google

Related articles:

Takeaways from the Future of Brands 2026: AI, culture and measurement take centre stage (https://uk.themedialeader.com/takeaways-from-the-future-of-brands-2026-ai-culture-and-measurement-take-centre-stage/)

AI optimisation: The new channel brands can’t afford to overlook (https://uk.themedialeader.com/ai-optimisation-the-new-channel-brands-cant-afford-to-overlook/)

Havas Media Network launches ‘generative engine optimisation’ tool (https://uk.themedialeader.com/havas-media-network-launches-generative-engine-optimisation-tool/)

Agency groups’ AI platforms, explained (https://uk.themedialeader.com/agency-groups-ai-platforms-explained/)