AI systems are forming impressions of companies before customers ever visit a website. Palmata is built to give brands a say in how those impressions look.
Contentful, a leading digital experience platform trusted by more than 4,800 customers, announced the general availability of Palmata, a new offering designed to help organizations understand, measure, and improve how AI answer engines represent their company, so teams can confidently manage their brand’s reputation in the age of AI discovery.
As consumers increasingly turn to AI answer engines to research products, compare brands, and make purchase decisions, marketing leaders face a new challenge: AI systems are often forming impressions of companies before customers ever visit a website. While brands have spent years optimizing for search engines, they now must understand how AI systems discover, interpret, compare, and represent them.
Unlike traditional Answer Engine Optimization tools that primarily track visibility, rankings, and mentions, Palmata helps organizations understand the factors influencing AI-generated answers and provides clear, prioritized guidance on how to improve them. The platform enables teams to move beyond measurement and toward action, identifying the content decisions most likely to influence how their brand is represented over time.
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“Understanding how AI systems represent your brand is only the first step,” said Tricia Gellman, CMO of Box. “Today’s buyer journey is increasingly invisible, with prospects researching solutions through AI long before they engage directly with a company. Marketers need to understand whether they’re showing up in those conversations or being left off the shortlist entirely. Palmata helps teams identify where they’re vulnerable, understand what actions will improve their AI reputation, and prioritize the opportunities that matter most.”
Palmata is powered by the proprietary Sounder Discovery Agent, which continuously observes, learns, and synthesizes signals that influence AI-generated answers by analyzing publicly available data. Through research across a company’s market, competitors, audiences, content footprint, and digital ecosystem, Palmata develops a deep understanding of the factors shaping AI discovery and reputation.
The platform’s key capabilities include Steering Control, which allows teams to focus research toward specific brands, products, competitors, audiences, segments, regions, and strategic priorities. “In AI search, the question that matters is whether AI describes you accurately, because the model answers with total confidence whether it’s right or wrong,” said Harry McIntosh, VP of Engineering at Telus Digital. “Palmata’s Steering Control lets us point it at the specific products, audiences, and competitors we care about, so we can see exactly what AI says we do and where it learned it.”
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Adaptive Deep Research continuously develops context around a business’s competitors, category, audiences, and digital landscape, uncovering the factors that shape AI discovery. “Palmata’s Adaptive Deep Research goes beyond broad monitoring and adapts to the complexity of our business,” said Jamie Bothwell, VP Marketing at DocuSign. “Rather than treating our company as a single brand, Palmata develops context around our category, audiences, and competitors that helps us understand how AI systems are representing each part of our portfolio.”
Recommended Actions translates research into prioritized steps, identifying the quick wins and strategic opportunities most likely to improve how brands appear in AI-generated answers. “Everyone is talking about visibility in AI search, but visibility alone doesn’t tell you what to do next,” said Alice McKown, Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer of The Atlantic. “What differentiates Palmata is its ability to show us how AI systems are actually perceiving our business and a clear set of actions backed by research and simulation.”
Simulated Impact models how recommended actions may influence AI reputation, helping teams compare opportunities, understand tradeoffs, and prioritize investments with greater confidence.
“Most AI visibility tools tell you whether you appear in an answer, but they don’t tell you what to do next,” said Jason McGhee, Palmata Head of Product at Contentful. “We built Palmata to help marketers understand how AI systems perceive their business, why those perceptions exist, and which actions are most likely to improve outcomes.”
While Palmata operates independently of the Contentful platform, the launch reflects Contentful’s broader vision for the future of digital experiences — one in which brands must optimize content not just for websites and search engines, but also for AI systems that increasingly mediate how information is discovered and consumed.
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“Contentful was built on the belief that content is the foundation of every digital experience,” said Karthik Rau, CEO of Contentful. “Today, AI systems increasingly shape how businesses are discovered, understood, and evaluated before a customer ever visits a website. Palmata helps organizations navigate this shift by turning AI discovery risk into a credible plan for growth.”
Launch partners include The Atlantic, Box, Dataiku, DocuSign, Marketbridge, and Telus Digital. Palmata is generally available today in select markets, and marketers can run their first report for free at palmata.ai.
