Vero and Mad Hat Asia have announced the launch of a regional initiative built to strengthen the visibility and reputation of organizations and brands across Southeast Asia as AI-driven search reshapes how people discover information.
This new offering reflects a fundamental shift in search: brands are no longer competing for online visibility in just a list of results on traditional search engines, but for a place in the answers generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
Aptly called Own the Answer, the initiative will help enterprises establish greater credibility, clarity, and authority over their information when people turn to AI for recommendations, explanations, and decisions.
At the core of our approach is generative engine optimization (GEO), an emerging discipline ensuring brands are accurately, favorably, consistently, and credibly cited in the answers generated by large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI tools.
This initiative is led by the Own the Answer Council, a cross-agency team of communications and data specialists from Vero and Mad Hat Asia: Charmaine de Lazo, Editorial Director; Natnicha Chaisirilarp, Account Director; Nattronnachai Kumkronglertsin, Senior Data Analyst; Peerapong Pongpakdee, Data Analytics Senior Manager; Rengeeta Rendava, Founder and Managing Director of Mad Hat Asia; and Tran Ong Minh Triet, Senior Data and Insights Analyst, to guide clients through each stage of the GEO process.
“Our mission has always been to ensure our clients are understood and strongly represented wherever opinions are formed and decisions are made,” said Rengeeta. “AI is simply the next environment where reputations are built. The organizations that succeed are those communicating with enough clarity, authority, and consistency to become trusted sources that AI is confident citing.”
Own the Answer Council offers comprehensive support to clients. The process begins with a GEO as audit, where a brand’s current visibility, share of voice, and sentiment relative to competitors are measured and analyzed. The Council then identifies gaps that may be limiting a brand’s AI discoverability and recommendation.
Once those gaps are identified, the Council helps clients develop content and placement strategies based on the findings, assessing content readiness through Vero’s proprietary Editorial IQ™, which analyzes content for media, SEO, and GEO. From there, the team identifies the publications, platforms, local forums, and creator categories that LLMs trust, and builds earned media and community programs around them. Once content is released, the Council conducts a GEO assessment to track shifts in brand visibility and competitive positioning against the pre-release baseline, with results visible to clients in real time through the GEO Live Dashboard. Vero and Mad Hat Asia will leverage leading GEO software and AI tools to support implementation.
“The GEO Live dashboard monitors how often AI engines mention your brand’s name compared to their competitors – with share of voice, sentiment scores, average AI positioning, brand visibility ranking, AI visibility alerts, and an AI ask feature updated monthly,” explained Peerapong. “This dashboard is what really offers our clients visibility. Trust in this industry is not built on promises; it is built on results clients can see, and we want our work to reflect that.”
Own the Answer is Vero and Mad Hat Asia’s response to the growing influence of AI and the increasing importance of GEO in shaping consumer behaviors. Unlike traditional search engine optimization (SEO) that focuses on improving a brand’s ranking in search results, GEO optimizes for AI-generated answers. This shift matters now because AI adoption is accelerating across Southeast Asia, and consumers are bypassing traditional search for AI-generated recommendations in categories such as travel, finance, F&B, and lifestyle.
This shift has also brought renewed attention to the power of earned media. LLMs are programmed to use earned media as a source, with studies showing that between 82% and 95% of AI-generated citations originate from unpaid, third-party sources, such as editorial news, expert reviews, and industry blogs. For organizations and brands aiming to appear in AI responses, it is critical to focus on building a robust earned media profile and getting authoritative verification from established news agencies.
“For brands already investing in PR, GEO is a natural extension of that strategy,” said Natnicha. “Earned media has always built credibility with people; now it also helps build credibility with AI models. As search and customer journeys evolve, organizations should think not only about where their stories appear, but also how those stories are interpreted and surfaced by AI. GEO helps ensure existing communications investments continue creating value in this unique environment.”
Vero continuously collaborates with specialist partners to stay at the forefront of AI developments, combining Vero’s proprietary methodologies with industry-leading technology to bridge the gap between traditional cultural storytelling and AI-readable brand presence.
Vero and Mad Hat Asia bring together complementary capabilities across analytics, editorial intelligence, brand positioning, creative communications, earned influence, and culturally relevant storytelling. This enables the team to strengthen how brands communicate with people while also ensuring that their authority can be understood, trusted, and cited by AI systems.
As AI-generated answers become more embedded in search and discovery, Own the Answer reflects the consultancies’ shared belief that the next era of visibility will not be defined only by whether a brand can be found, but by whether it is understood, trusted, and cited.
Ready to own the answer? Let’s talk.
