Contentful has launched Palmata, an AI brand monitoring and recommendation product that is now generally available in select markets.
Palmata is aimed at organisations that want to track how AI answer engines describe their business and identify changes that could affect those responses. It operates separately from Contentful's core content platform.
The launch reflects growing concern among marketers that customers are increasingly using AI tools to research products and compare suppliers before visiting a company website. That shift has created demand for tools that go beyond tracking mentions or rankings to examine how AI systems form and present impressions of brands.
According to Contentful, Palmata analyses publicly available data across a company's market, competitors, audiences, content footprint and wider digital presence. It uses what Contentful calls its Sounder Discovery Agent to assess the signals that shape AI-generated responses and suggest actions to improve how a brand is represented.
Market shift
Contentful is positioning the product around a problem becoming more visible as AI assistants and answer engines move into search and discovery. Marketers have long invested in search engine optimisation, but AI-generated summaries and recommendations introduce a different challenge because they may rely on broader signals and present conclusions with little transparency.
"Understanding how AI systems represent your brand is only the first step," said Tricia Gellman, Chief Marketing Officer, 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 prioritise the opportunities that matter most," said Gellman.
Contentful said Palmata includes tools called Steering Control, Adaptive Deep Research, Recommended Actions and Simulated Impact. Steering Control is designed to let users focus analysis on specific brands, products, competitors, audience groups or regions. Adaptive Deep Research is intended to build a picture of the market and digital environment around a business. The recommendation and simulation functions are meant to help teams decide which changes to make first and estimate their likely effect.
"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, Head of Product, Palmata, 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. Instead of creating more anxiety, Palmata creates clarity," said McGhee.
Launch partners
Several organisations are already using the product as launch partners, including The Atlantic, Box, Dataiku, Docusign, Marketbridge and Telus Digital. Their comments suggest it is being tested in media, software and marketing services settings where AI-led discovery may affect brand selection and lead generation.
"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, Vice President of Engineering, 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. That's a much clearer path from insight to action," said McIntosh.
Docusign said the product's research model is useful for companies with multiple brands or product lines that may not be represented consistently by AI systems. That points to a broader issue for large organisations whose messaging varies across divisions, websites and third-party sources.
"Palmata's Adaptive Deep Research goes beyond broad monitoring of AI answers and adapts to the complexity of our business," said Jamie Bothwell, Vice President of Marketing, 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 and where we have the greatest opportunities to improve," said Bothwell.
The Atlantic focused on the product's emphasis on recommended next steps rather than simple visibility metrics. Marketbridge framed the issue as a change in how answer engines surface and describe brands, rather than a conventional search ranking problem.
"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, The Atlantic.
"What differentiates Palmata is its ability to show us how AI systems are actually perceiving our business, how we can optimise, and a clear set of actions backed by research and simulation," said McKown.
"As answer engines increasingly become the first place consumers go for information, brands need a way to understand and influence how they're being represented," said Bob Ray, Chief Executive Officer, Marketbridge.
"Palmata helps move the conversation beyond mentions and rankings toward a clearer understanding of how AI answer engines surface and describe brands," said Ray.
For Contentful, the product broadens its focus from managing digital content to helping customers shape how that content is interpreted by AI systems. The move reflects a wider change in content operations as organisations prepare material not only for websites and search engines but also for tools that summarise, compare and recommend information across channels.
"Contentful was built on the belief that content is the foundation of every digital experience," said Karthik Rau, Chief Executive Officer, Contentful.
"Today, AI systems increasingly shape how businesses are discovered, understood and evaluated before a customer ever visits a website. Palmata helps organisations navigate this shift by turning AI discovery risk into a credible plan for growth. It gives teams the clarity and intelligence they need to understand their AI reputation and improve it over time," said Rau.
"AI is now shaping brand perception before a customer ever reaches your website," said Mark Abramowitz, Chief Marketing Officer, Dataiku.
"The hard part is knowing what actually matters. Palmata has the potential to help us focus on that," said Abramowitz.