Entity confusion
Entity confusion is when an AI platform mixes your brand up with another business, product or person, and tells people the wrong things about you.
Entity confusion is when an AI platform mixes your brand up with something else: another business with a similar name, a product you no longer sell, a company you merged with, or a person who shares your founder's name. The answer names you, but some of what it says belongs to someone else.
It's easy to miss because it looks like good news. You're being named. You only spot the problem when you read what the answer says.
What it looks like
There are a few common kinds:
- Two businesses with the same name, like a coffee roaster and a recruitment firm both called Kestrel
- Your old self, like the prices or address you had before you moved
- A product line confused with the parent brand, or the other way round
- A brand you bought or were bought by, whose details get merged into yours
For example, say an answer to "Is Kestrel any good?" praises Kestrel's fast hiring process and quotes reviews from job seekers. The roaster gets a mention, and nobody looking for coffee learns anything useful.
Why it costs you
A customer who hears the wrong facts doesn't know they're wrong. They may skip you because of a price you never charged or a complaint about a company you've never heard of. And if you only count mentions, it looks like your visibility is fine.
How to fix it
Make it easy to tell you apart. Use one consistent name and description everywhere you're listed, say plainly on your site what you do and where, and add structured data that names your brand and links your official profiles. Where a third-party page has merged you with someone else, ask the site to correct it.
In AnswerOrbit
If an answer is clearly about another business with your name, we don't count it as naming you. If we can't tell, we mark it as possibly another business and leave it out too. In Settings, Matching lets you match your name's case exactly or count it only in answers about certain words, and Possibly another business lets you mark each doubtful answer It's you or Not you. When the confusion leads to wrong facts about you, Claims catches them.