AI is transforming how consumers discover, compare and choose brands, shifting competition from search visibility to AI-mediated trust and recommendation. In this Hong Kong Economic Times interview, VM Founder and CEO Joseph Tang and ximu Product Lead Vitas Zhang explain why SEO remains an essential foundation, but GEO is becoming increasingly important. The real challenge is not controlling AI-generated answers, but governing the sources AI systems encounter, interpret and cite. Through ximu and the Seen & Trusted Index, brands can better understand how they are represented by AI—and identify what must change to improve visibility, credibility and recommendation.
As enterprises embed AI into their workflows, the market needs more than stronger models or more agents. It needs a complete system that can answer why AI should be adopted, how it should be governed, how it creates growth, and how it can be correctly understood by both humans and machines. VM defines AI PR as the discipline of IMAGE Asset Governance across human and AI decision environments. Through ximu, VM GEO, and PRaaS 2.0, it creates a complete loop from IMAGE Assets and Directed Governance to sustained market influence.
As AI becomes a primary entry point for high-net-worth individuals seeking wealth management advice, the rules of competition for private banking and family office services are rapidly evolving. This edition of the AI TRUST Brand Influence Report uses CTBC Bank as its benchmark brand and applies ximu together with the Seen & Trusted Index (STI) to analyze how brands compete across both the human and AI worlds. The report explores how AI is redefining trust, reshaping decision-making journeys, and creating a new competitive landscape for wealth management.
Historically, airline competition was defined by route networks, service quality, market share, and passenger reviews. Today, as more consumers turn to AI to plan journeys, compare airlines, and seek travel recommendations, a new layer of competition is emerging. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), international passenger demand among Asia-Pacific airlines increased by 10.9% in 2025, making the region one of the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world. As cross-border travel continues to accelerate, AI is increasingly becoming a key gateway through which travelers discover, evaluate, and select airline brands. AI does not simply replicate market rankings. Instead, it interprets, prioritizes, and recommends brands based on its own knowledge framework and the information available to it. As a result, an airline's position in the market does not necessarily translate into the same position in AI-generated recommendations. Among the many Asian airline brands, we selected Singapore Airlines as the core subject of this study. As one of the world's leading airline brands, Singapore Airlines has consistently ranked among the industry's top performers. According to Skytrax, it ranked second globally in 2025, behind only Qatar Airways. As a benchmark for premium airline service in Asia, Singapore Airlines also represents a challenge increasingly shared by established brands: as AI becomes a growing influence on consumer decision-making, can a brand still be seen, understood, and recommended by AI? To answer this question, the study uses ximu to analyze queries related to Asian airline recommendations, covering decision-making scenarios such as travel planning, airline comparison, business travel, and in-flight experience. Combined with Google Trends, OpView, and publicly available market data, the research examines the gap between human perception and AI recommendation, revealing how brand influence differs across the two worlds. This report does not seek to answer which airline is the best. Instead, it explores a more important question: As consumers increasingly rely on AI to plan their journeys, will the airline preferred by travelers also be the airline preferred by AI?
ximu — See What AI See — was shortlisted alongside leading international teams from Japan, Singapore, and across the Asia-Pacific region at PR Awards Asia-Pacific 2026. It ultimately received the Best AI Product/Service award, becoming the sole winner in the category.
ximu has recently been officially accepted into the NVIDIA Inception Program. Beyond the initial excitement, however, a deeper question immediately came to mind: What does this actually mean—for us, and for brands more broadly? From a company development perspective, joining a global AI ecosystem program is certainly positive news. But I prefer to see it as a small window into understanding the AI era itself.
Adobe just spent $1.9B acquiring Semrush. On the surface, it looks like a classic MarTech expansion move. Look deeper, and it’s a defensive bet—one made out of fear of the new order. AI is hollowing out the value of traditional search, and semantic gateways are being redistributed.
