Herd MSL Australia has partnered with search specialists from Publicis Groupe ANZ to launch Elevate, a new AI search visibility, authority and measurement service.
Elevate aims to help organisations address the complex challenge of how brands are framed, trusted and recommended across fragmented, AI‑powered search environments.
The new service will help brands assess the quality of their representation. It will identify where signals of credibility, relevance and authority are strong, where they are weak, and where to invest in owned content and earned media to influence outcomes.
“AI search is increasingly a reputation engine,” said Skye Lambley, CEO at Herd MSL. “It doesn’t just decide who appears – it shapes how brands are described, trusted and recommended.
“Winning isn’t just about showing up more – it’s about showing up better. The brands that perform strongly are backed by credible, high quality earned and owned authority: trusted coverage and content, expert validation and consistent third-party proof points. That takes more than content output or disruption – it requires a sophisticated earned and owned strategy and execution to shape how a brand is represented, not just whether it’s mentioned.”
Elevate connects three specialist Publicis Groupe ANZ capabilities within a single service:
- Category: level search intelligence so brands can see the full picture. This includes understanding what people are searching for across a category, how demand is forming, and where brands, competitors and third‑party sources are showing up.
- AI search strategy and content structuring so brands can be selected and represented accurately. Identifying priority question clusters, decoding the signals AI systems use to generate responses, and defining what needs to change to improve how brands are selected, framed and explained in AI‑search results.
- Earned & owned authority building so brands can strengthen trust. This includes designing and delivering insight‑led owned and earned programs that build third‑party validation, expert presence and credible references.
Jack Telford head of search Zenith Australia, who is working with other Publicis Groupe ANZ media agencies on the Groupe’s unified GEO & connected search offering said: “Brands are racing to track how they appear in AI search and optimise owned experiences for retrieval, but this is only part of the picture”
“AI platforms don’t reward brands based on their websites alone. They assemble answers from a broader ecosystem of trusted sources, including publishers, experts, reviews, communities and user generated content.”
“As a result, brands can experience a gap where third party narratives frame visibility, and competitors with weaker brands outperform via stronger earned authority signals. Elevate brings together our specialist capabilities, human intelligence and AI powered technology to close that gap.”
