Source Intelligence is the discipline of monitoring and influencing the third-party content AI uses to describe your brand. Reddit threads. Wikipedia articles. G2 reviews. Hacker News discussions. News coverage. Most AI visibility tools never look here. Kodiac built the category around it.
University of Toronto: Chen, Wang, Chen & Koudas, Sept 2025 · "AI Search exhibit a systematic and overwhelming bias towards Earned media over Brand-owned and Social content."
Source Intelligence measures and improves the third-party content layer that shapes how AI systems describe your brand. It is the missing layer in single-source AI visibility tools, and the largest single contributor to brand representation in generative AI.
Every source is scored 0–10 for how heavily AI systems weight it when describing your brand. Wikipedia stub article? Weight 9.4 in ChatGPT. Reddit pricing thread? Weight 7.8 in Perplexity. The numbers tell you which interventions actually move the needle.
Reddit. Wikipedia. Wikidata. G2. Hacker News. ProductHunt. Industry news. Trade press. Partner directories. Forum discussions. Review sites. Every source AI systems treat as authoritative gets continuous tracking with sentiment alerts.
Every recommended intervention comes with a predicted points uplift to your overall AI visibility score. “Add a Wikipedia stub: +9 points.” “Address the Reddit pricing thread: +11 points.” Real numbers, ranked by leverage, not generic recommendations.
Source-specific intervention playbooks for the categories that matter most. Wikipedia editorial guidance. Reddit community engagement. G2 review acquisition. Hacker News brand presence. Specific tactics, not generic advice you'd find on a blog.
Independent research from the University of Toronto (Chen, Wang, Chen, Koudas - September 2025) measured how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude source their answers about brands. In consumer electronics, AI cited third-party publications 92.1% of the time. In automotive, 81.9%. In software, 74.2%. The pattern is consistent across regions, languages, and verticals: AI systems exhibit a systematic, overwhelming bias toward earned media over anything brands publish themselves.
Reddit alone accounts for 6.6% of Perplexity citations. Wikipedia accounts for 5% of ChatGPT citations. Most B2B brands have either a Wikipedia stub or no entry at all. Most B2B brands have never audited what's said about them on Reddit.
Audit-only tools tell you the symptom. Source Intelligence tells you the root cause.
A digital lead at a mid-market B2B SaaS company runs a Kodiac three-layer audit and sees an AI visibility score of 34/100. Audit-only tools would tell her to publish more content. Source Intelligence tells her exactly where the problem actually is.
Per-system breakdown shows Perplexity worst at 19/100. ChatGPT 38. Gemini 41. The score has not improved despite 6 months of website optimisation.
Website Score 47/100. 10-dimension breakdown shows acceptable structured data and AI-readability. The owned site is not the bottleneck.
A single Reddit pricing thread is being cited by ChatGPT in 4 of 12 buyer queries. Wikipedia stub is missing. Three out-of-date G2 reviews dominate the snippet. The fix isn't more content - it's source intervention.
The team addresses the Reddit thread (+11 points predicted), creates a proper Wikipedia entry (+9 points), and refreshes G2 (+7 points). Within 6 weeks the AI visibility score moves from 34 to 67. None of those interventions would have been visible to an audit-only tool.
Social listening tracks brand mentions across social channels for sentiment and engagement. Source Intelligence tracks specifically the sources AI systems cite when generating answers, weighted by how heavily each system relies on each source. They are complementary disciplines with different goals.
For most B2B brands the highest-leverage sources are Wikipedia (heavily cited by ChatGPT and Gemini), G2 and similar review platforms (cited for product comparisons), Reddit (cited by Perplexity and increasingly by ChatGPT for opinion-rich queries), and trade press. The exact ranking depends on category and AI system mix.
Yes - through legitimate community engagement, not manipulation. Kodiac's Reddit playbook covers product team participation, AMA hosting, transparent correction of factual errors, and earning natural mentions through genuine value. Manipulating Reddit will damage you. Engaging properly will improve every layer of your AI visibility.
For any B2B brand large enough to be evaluated against competitors in AI-mediated buyer journeys, yes. Wikipedia notability requires independent reliable sources, so the prerequisite is press coverage and trade citations. Kodiac's Wikipedia playbook covers notability assessment, sourcing, and proper editorial process.
Per-source interventions typically appear in AI responses within 4–8 weeks once the source is updated and re-indexed. Wikipedia and G2 update fastest. Reddit and Hacker News are influenced over months through community participation. Sustained improvement of overall AI score takes 3–6 months.
Free three-layer audit. All five AI systems. Per-source AI weight. Predicted score uplift per intervention. No credit card required.
Run free audit →