The Communications Industry Has an AI Blind Spot. Sam Michelson, CEO of Five Blocks, Is Talking About It.
AI is already forming narratives about your brand, and most communications teams have no idea what those narratives say. Five Blocks CEO Sam Michelson has been having that conversation everywhere lately. Here is a roundup of what he has been saying and why it matters right now.
There is one topic that keeps showing up in every serious communications conversation right now: AI is reshaping how brands, executives, and organizations are being described, discovered, and evaluated, and most communications teams are not yet measuring it.
Over the past few months, Five Blocks founder Sam Michelson has been in a lot of those conversations. From podcasts to editorial Q&As to LinkedIn interviews, he has been sharing what he is seeing on the ground with clients, what the data is telling us, and what communications professionals need to understand right now.
Here is a roundup of where those conversations happened and what came out of them.
AI Models Are the New Influencers
Scale Without Chaos with Samantha Riel
In this conversation with Samantha Riel on Scale Without Chaos, Sam made an argument that reframes how communications teams should think about AI entirely: AI models are not just search tools, they are influencers. They have opinions. They have narratives. And they share those narratives at scale, with apparent authority, in response to questions your most important audiences are already asking.
The conversation covers how ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs form those narratives, why the sources they draw on are often not the ones communications teams have prioritized, and what it practically means to manage reputation in a world where AI is the first stop for due diligence.
Watch/listen on Apple, YouTube or Spotify
AI Is on the March: What PR Pros Need to Know
With Dustin Siggins
Dustin Siggins brought Sam in for a direct, no-fluff conversation aimed squarely at PR professionals who are trying to figure out what AI means for their work and their clients. Sam was direct: the window to get ahead of this is narrow, and the agencies treating AI reputation as a future problem are already behind.
The conversation covers the specific ways AI is forming narratives about brands, why traditional PR metrics are not capturing what matters in an AI-first environment, and what agencies should be doing differently right now.
Masterclass from the "CEO of GEO"
Out of Scope with Hirsch Leatherwood
The Out of Scope podcast gave Sam the space to go deep on a concept he has been developing: GEO for Reputation. While most GEO tools focus on visibility and citation counts, how often a brand appears in AI responses, Sam argues that presence is not the same as favorable presence, and that what actually matters is the accuracy, sentiment, and competitive framing of the narrative AI is building about a brand.
This conversation is a masterclass for anyone trying to understand how AI reputation management is different from traditional search reputation management, and why the distinction matters strategically.
Watch/listen on YouTube or Spotify
AI Is Quietly Rewriting Reputation
Q&A with Fay Shapiro, CommPRO
This is one of the most comprehensive conversations Sam has had in print. CommPRO founder Fay Shapiro asked the questions communications leaders are quietly sitting with, and Sam answered them directly.
A few of the sharpest moments from the piece:
On who is controlling the narrative today: "Honestly? In most cases, no one is, and that's exactly the problem I spend most of my time explaining to clients. The gap that exists where a deliberate communications strategy should be is being filled by AI platforms drawing from sources organizations never curated for that purpose."
On why owned content alone is not enough: "The fix isn't more press releases. It's making sure the information you actually control is comprehensive, accurate, structured in a way AI can read, and consistent across every platform where it appears."
On the urgency: "We are not five years from this shift. It is happening in real searches, with real decision-makers, today."
The full piece is worth reading in its entirety.
Five Blocks Announces AIQ
Quick Interview with Amanda Coffee, Coffee Communications
Amanda Coffee, CEO of Coffee Communications, sat down with Sam shortly after the AIQ launch to talk about what the platform does and why it matters for communications professionals. Amanda framed it well: AIQ gives PR teams visibility into how large language models construct narratives about companies, which sources influence those narratives, and how perceptions evolve over time.
Most Leaders Still Think Their Reputation Lives on Google
Conversation with Wendy Kauffman, Wendolyn Reputation Management
Wendy Kauffman's conversation with Sam zeroed in on a gap that most executives have not yet confronted: the reputation they have built on Google and the reputation AI is building about them are often not the same thing. And most leaders have no idea.
The conversation covers why the two channels diverge, what it takes to close the gap, and what communications leaders need to be telling their C-suites right now.
The Thread Running Through All of It
Whether the conversation was about PR agencies, brand communications teams, or executive reputation, the same themes kept surfacing.
AI is not coming. It is here, and it is already shaping how your most important audiences understand you. The narrative is forming whether you are managing it or not. The organizations that start measuring and managing their AI reputation now will be the ones who define what AI says about them. Everyone else will inherit whatever AI decides.
If you want to understand what AI is currently saying about your brand, start with a free AIQ snapshot at aiq.fiveblocks.com.
And if you want Sam in a conversation, a podcast, a panel, an interview, reach out. There is clearly a lot more to talk about.