If you can’t beat them, compromise them. The “them” being AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude. Ed Sussman, a former lawyer, and his company Citate.ai are pioneering ways to influence how AI chatbots perceive and present information. Their approach isn’t about hacking AI systems but rather systematically shaping the web content that feeds these systems.
By analyzing patterns in chatbot responses across thousands of queries, Citate.ai has discovered that AI systems’ outputs can be subtly steered through strategic content placement. It’s a revelation that could spawn an industry rivaling the $70 billion search engine optimization market. In a way, we humans try to do the same things again and again — better (or worse) with new machines.
Fred Vogelstein, my co-writer at CrazyStupidTech, writes about Sussman and his new company in the latest edition of our newsletter. Click here to read more.
