Brands can now track and influence what AI says about them

impact.com and Evertune announced a partnership on December 16, 2025, connecting AI search visibility measurement with performance marketing activation. The collaboration integrates Evertune's AI Brand Monitoring reports directly into impact.com's platform, allowing brands to track how large language models reference them and activate partnerships with the content creators influencing those AI-generated recommendations.

Evertune's newly launched Partner Connect marketplace enables customers to act on AI visibility insights by distributing content across sources that shape AI recommendations. impact.com, described in the announcement as the world's leading commerce partnership marketing platform, made a strategic investment in Evertune as part of the collaboration, reinforcing both companies' commitment to shaping AI-powered commerce discovery.

The partnership addresses a fundamental shift in consumer behavior documented by Adobe in July 2025. Traffic to United States retail sites driven by generative AI sources surged 4,700% year-over-year, according to the Adobe report, outpacing traditional online shopping growth. ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews have become primary research channels for shopping guidance, competing directly with traditional search results.

"This partnership moves performance marketing beyond the click into the realm of insights and authority," said David A. Yovanno, CEO of impact.com, in the announcement. The integration provides brands and publishers with visibility across the large language model ecosystem while offering strategic activation capabilities to act on that intelligence.

Large language models rely heavily on trusted, authentic content for product recommendations. In-depth reviews, comparisons, tutorials, and expert perspectives from creators and affiliate commerce publishers have become increasingly influential in shaping AI-generated answers. Because AI platforms process this commerce content as training material and real-time reference sources, the output of affiliate marketers now directly influences what millions of consumers see when asking AI systems for product advice.

Commerce content dominates AI citations

Brian Stempeck, CEO of Evertune, revealed significant data about AI training sources in the announcement. In analysis of the top 10,000 sources cited by AI models, over 40% of content either contains affiliate links or is sponsored. This concentration demonstrates how commerce-focused content has become fundamental to AI model knowledge bases.

"By partnering with impact.com, we help brands understand their visibility in AI search, discover the publishers that have the biggest influence on AI answers, and activate their affiliate networks, ensuring their products show up when AI recommends what to buy," Stempeck stated.

The partnership creates an industry-first connection between AI insight and partnership activation. Brands can now see which individual creators or trusted sources influence AI-driven recommendations and immediately activate partnerships with those creators through the impact.com marketplace.

The integration functions through multiple components. Evertune's AI Brand Monitoring reports appear directly within impact.com's platform for select customers. Additionally, impact.com created an activation capability that allows brands to form partnerships with the commerce creators and publishers identified by Evertune's Content Analytics.

Available metrics provide brands with detailed visibility into their AI presence. The AI Brand Score measures how likely an AI model is to recommend a brand when the brand name is not mentioned in the prompt. This score reflects both frequency of brand appearances in AI answers and ranking position within those responses, giving companies a benchmark for visibility against competitors.

Domain Mentions break down which publisher and creator domains AI models include as sources most often in a given category. This enables brands to identify the sources carrying the most influence in AI recommendations and prioritize partnerships with the creators and publishers shaping their visibility.

Integration enables direct activation

Marketing teams can convert AI search insights into targeted Generative Engine Optimization partnerships through the integration. This includes access to impact.com's RFP engine and what the announcement describes as the world's largest and most diverse premium content marketplace of creators and publishers.

Future capabilities will include media packages and high-impact placements with the creators and commerce content publishers that most strongly shape large language model responses. This will allow brands to refresh mentions in high-authority articles or commission new content from sources that generative engines consistently cite.

The launch marks impact.com as the first partner appearing in Evertune's Partner Connect marketplace. Marketers can discover prioritized lists of AI-influential content sources within Evertune and activate affiliate and creator campaigns directly in impact.com through the integration. To measure campaign effectiveness, they can track how increased mentions improve visibility in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other leading large language models.

The partnership reflects broader industry movement toward commerce-focused AI optimization strategies. Google's algorithm changes throughout 2024 and 2025 have created significant traffic challenges for affiliate content sections, forcing publishers to adapt strategies. Major news publishers including Forbes, CNN, and Wall Street Journal experienced substantial declines in affiliate section visibility beginning in September 2024.

Simultaneously, research published in July 2025 by Brainlabs documented that AI search visitors demonstrate 4.4 times higher value than traditional organic traffic when measured by conversion rates. This higher conversion rate stems from AI systems providing comprehensive information during the research phase, meaning users arrive at websites already equipped with knowledge about options and value propositions.

Measurement addresses opacity challenges

The partnership solves a persistent challenge in the emerging AI search market where visibility tracking tools often operate independently from conversion analytics systems. What previously represented an opaque and difficult-to-navigate part of the AI ecosystem becomes transparent, actionable, and directly tied to measurable commerce outcomes through the integration.

Early customers can convert AI search insights into targeted partnerships. Looking ahead, brands will access media packages and high-impact placements with the creators and commerce content publishers that most strongly shape large language model responses. This includes refreshing mentions in high-authority articles or commissioning new content from sources that generative engines consistently cite.

The collaboration arrives as marketing professionals increasingly recognize AI search optimization as distinct from traditional search engine optimization. Generative Engine Optimization, Answer Engine Optimization, and AI Optimization have emerged as competing frameworks throughout 2025, each proposing different approaches to search optimization in AI-powered environments.

Google's John Mueller issued warnings on August 14, 2025, suggesting that aggressive promotion of new AI search optimization acronyms may indicate spam and scamming activities. Despite this caution, the fundamental shift toward AI-mediated product discovery continues accelerating across the digital advertising industry.

Amplitude introduced AI Visibility tools with competitive tracking capabilities on November 1, 2025, providing similar brand monitoring functionality. Adobe launched its LLM Optimizer on October 14, 2025, offering enterprise customers visibility tracking capabilities. The rapid emergence of competing platforms demonstrates how quickly the market for AI search optimization tools has developed.

impact.com serves over 5,000 global brands including Walmart, Uber, Shopify, Lenovo, L'Oréal, and Fanatics. The platform powers more than 350,000 partnerships delivering measurable business results. Award-winning products include Performance for affiliate marketing, Creator for influencer management, and Advocate for customer referral programs. These products unify every type of partner into one integrated platform as consumers increasingly rely on recommendations from people and communities they trust.

Evertune analyzes over 1 million AI responses monthly per brand across all major large language models to provide statistically significant brand monitoring and competitive intelligence. The Generative Engine Optimization and AI marketing platform gives marketers data-driven content creation and distribution strategies to increase AI discoverability. Founded in 2024 in New York City by early team members of The Trade Desk, Evertune has raised 19 million dollars in funding from leading advertising technology and marketing technology investors.

The AI Search Visibility Reports are now available for select brands. Early partners are already using these insights to activate GEO-informed creator and affiliate campaigns through Partner Connect. A broader rollout is planned for early 2026.

Marketing implications emerge

For performance marketing professionals, the partnership addresses dual challenges created by AI-mediated commerce discovery. Brands need visibility into how AI systems currently represent them while simultaneously requiring tools to improve that representation through strategic content partnerships.

The integration enables marketing teams to understand which specific domains and creators influence AI recommendations in their product categories. Rather than generic optimization approaches, brands can identify the precise sources that large language models reference most frequently and prioritize partnerships with those publishers.

This targeted approach differs substantially from traditional search engine optimization strategies. Where SEO focuses on ranking individual web pages through keyword optimization and backlink profiles, AI search optimization requires understanding how models synthesize information from multiple sources to generate original recommendations.

Content creators and affiliate publishers gain new visibility into their influence over AI-generated product recommendations. Publishers can now quantify their impact on large language model outputs and potentially negotiate compensation reflecting that influence. The shift creates a new value proposition for commerce content beyond direct traffic and conversion metrics.

Measurement methodologies must adapt to AI-powered discovery channels. Traditional metrics like click-through rates and page rankings become less relevant when consumers receive comprehensive answers without visiting websites. The AI Brand Score and Domain Mentions metrics represent alternative frameworks for quantifying brand presence in environments where zero-click experiences dominate.

The partnership reflects convergence between affiliate marketing infrastructure and AI optimization capabilities. Retail media networks have experienced rapid expansion, with sponsored product coverage climbing 7% as retailers shift toward dynamic ad placement strategies. Commerce content created for these retail media environments now serves dual purposes as both immediate conversion drivers and training material for AI models.

Privacy and consent frameworks surrounding AI model training remain unsettled. Questions persist about compensation for content creators whose work trains large language models or appears in AI-generated responses. The partnership operates within existing affiliate marketing structures, where compensation flows through established commission-based systems rather than addressing broader questions about AI training data licensing.

Adobe's research documenting 4,700% growth in generative AI-driven retail traffic suggests the trend toward AI-mediated commerce discovery will continue accelerating. Marketing teams must develop capabilities to track and optimize brand presence across these emerging channels while maintaining existing search and social media strategies.

The collaboration between impact.com and Evertune provides infrastructure for that adaptation. Brands gain visibility into AI representation, measurement frameworks for tracking improvements, and direct activation capabilities to partner with influential content creators. Whether this integration model becomes industry standard or represents one approach among many competing solutions remains to be determined as the AI search market continues developing throughout 2026.

Timeline

• September 2024: Major publishers including Forbes, CNN, and WSJ experience significant affiliate content traffic declines from Google algorithm changes
• October 14, 2025: Adobe launches LLM Optimizer for enterprise customers
• November 1, 2025: Amplitude introduces AI Visibility tool with competitive tracking capabilities
• November 13, 2025: Amazon launches Model Context Protocol Server in closed beta for natural language advertising API interactions
• December 16, 2025: impact.com and Evertune announce partnership integrating AI Brand Monitoring into performance marketing platform
• Early 2026: Planned broader rollout of AI Search Visibility Reports to additional brands

Related Coverage

• July 2025: Adobe reports generative AI sources drive 4,700% year-over-year traffic growth to U.S. retail sites
• July 2025: Brainlabs research shows AI search visitors demonstrate 4.4 times higher value than traditional organic traffic
• August 2025: Google's John Mueller warns that aggressive promotion of AI search optimization acronyms may indicate spam activities

Summary

Who: impact.com, described as the world's leading commerce partnership marketing platform serving over 5,000 global brands, partnered with Evertune, a Generative Engine Optimization platform founded in 2024 that analyzes over 1 million AI responses monthly per brand.

What: The partnership integrates Evertune's AI Brand Monitoring reports directly into impact.com's platform, enabling brands to track how large language models reference them and activate partnerships with content creators influencing AI recommendations. impact.com made a strategic investment in Evertune as part of the collaboration.

When: The partnership was announced on December 16, 2025. AI Search Visibility Reports are currently available for select brands, with broader rollout planned for early 2026.

Where: The integration operates within impact.com's existing performance marketing platform, which powers more than 350,000 partnerships globally. Evertune monitors brand visibility across ChatGPT, ChatGPT Search, Gemini, Gemini Search, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, MetaAI, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek.

Why: Adobe reported in July 2025 that traffic to U.S. retail sites driven by generative AI sources surged 4,700% year-over-year, demonstrating fundamental consumer behavior shifts toward AI-powered product research. Analysis of the top 10,000 sources cited by AI models shows over 40% of content contains affiliate links or is sponsored, making commerce content creators increasingly influential in shaping AI-generated product recommendations. The partnership addresses brands' need to measure and optimize visibility in these AI-mediated commerce discovery channels while providing actionable tools to improve representation through strategic content partnerships.