Artificial intelligence is changing how Namibian businesses are discovered online, as consumers increasingly receive direct brand and product recommendations from AI platforms instead of relying solely on conventional search engine results.
The shift was highlighted at V5 Digital’s second First Fridays business technology session in Windhoek, where companies were shown how platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok can influence which brands consumers encounter when making purchasing decisions.
V5 Digital founder Armin Wieland said the “Visible to AI” session focused on determining whether businesses appear in AI-generated responses and how their visibility compares with competitors.
“Today’s topic was visible to AI and essentially was all about, as a brand, company or organisation, how visible or invisible am I to the AI search engines or bots,” Wieland said.
Andrew Walmsley, founder of Visibiliti.ai and Techsys Digital, said consumers are increasingly asking AI systems for recommendations when choosing products and services, ranging from insurance policies to holidays and tour operators.
The change means businesses are no longer competing only for prominent positions on traditional search engines, but also for inclusion in answers generated directly by AI systems.
“What Visibiliti does is it helps brands to understand whether they’re being mentioned in those AI answers, whether they’re being recommended, and if they’re not, who is and why,” Walmsley said.
Visibiliti.ai tracks how brands appear across different AI platforms and compares their visibility against competitors using a range of consumer search prompts.
Businesses can use the platform to identify whether competitors are appearing more frequently in AI responses and assess gaps in their own digital content and online presence.
Participants at the Windhoek session were shown how to enter their website domains and assess how their brands perform against competitors.
Walmsley said the emergence of AI-generated search represents a shift from conventional search engine optimisation, where companies have traditionally competed to rank their websites prominently in search results.
AI platforms can instead provide consumers with a direct response, including specific brands or businesses, without requiring users to work through a list of search results.
The shift increases the importance of businesses maintaining clear, credible and accessible information online that AI systems can identify when generating responses to consumers.
V5 Digital established First Fridays as a platform for business leaders to examine the practical impact of AI, including adoption, implementation and responsible use of the technology.
