Trustpilot launches new features to help brands surface in AI search channels

Trustpilot has launched a new collection of features which it claims will help brands “maximise their relevance, credibility and visibility in the AI-powered path to purchase”. 

With lots of businesses consistently reporting lower website traffic thanks to Google’s AI search option, tools like Trustpilot’s, designed to optimise customer reviews for AI extraction, are likely to become essential bits of kit in no time.

New review tools available

Trustpilot says that its suite of new tools has been designed with one aim in mind — leveraging the “authentic human experience” that consumers share in their reviews. 

This, the company says, is where trust lies, but is also something that AI can’t replicate or paraphrase in the same way it can with other information. 

The first of Trustpilot’s new tools will let you capture verified customer reviews within applications you manage and publish them immediately, providing AI search tools have “fresh data” to “recognise and reward”.

There’s also a new “invitation optimizer”, which will effectively let you A/B test different review invitation templates. This will ensure you know which formats prompt your customers to leave comments and rate your service standards. 

There’s also going to be much more granular data relating to precisely how certain trust signals – such as good Trustpilot reviews – are impacting how much your brand is surfacing in AI outputs in “emerging AI search channels”, which we can only presume means platforms like ChatGPT as well as Google’s AI overview.

Trust at the top

According to the Capgemini Research Institute, more than 58% of consumers are now turning to Generative AI for recommendations when they shop. For most people, turning to such tools is now a normal part of searching for information. In other words, there’s no going back at this point. 

For your businesses to stay visible, you need to keep on top of the ever-evolving algorithms that are surfacing the internet’s content, and why they are (or aren’t) showing your company’s contact information, press releases and customer reviews.

A big part of this, of course, is understanding how information that regularly appears in the AI-generated search summaries is structured. For instance, is the information on your website available in extractable chunks? Are you front-loading important information at the start of paragraphs? If not, Google’s AI might turn to someone else’s description of your company instead, or surface competitors instead of your company when users are searching for services you offer. 

Customer reviews are, of course, another key ingredient to good brand visibility, so it’s encouraging to see Trustpilot roll out these features. They will likely be welcomed by small businesses that may not have enough reviews at present to convey much authority, are seeing old or fake reviews surface, or simply aren’t seeing reviews for their company at all in AI search channels.

In the age of AI, trust is a brand’s most powerful tool, and it is this that drives engagement. These new tools, it seems, will ensure all your hard work creating memorable customer experiences is not buried in cyberspace forever.