New technologies are redefining how we interact with information and build perceptions online. According to Renan Bulgueroni, CEO of Hawkz, a company specializing in digital reputation in Brazil and Spain, the way reputations are built and perceived on the web is undergoing a significant change, especially with the rise of generative artificial intelligence, voice assistants, and increasingly intelligent search engines.
Digital reputation — once limited to what appeared on the first pages of Google — is now processed, interpreted, and delivered in real-time by conversational algorithms, directly in your living room, car, or even on your watch.
“These technologies not only shape our perception but respond to the essence of human behavior: seeking safety, meaning, and clarity in relationships. If we once used Google as a modern oracle, today the oracle responds in real-time, with context and natural language,” says Renan Bulgueroni.
The neuroscience behind ‘Googling’
What seems like a habit shaped by modernity is actually — according to the expert — an ancestral behavior with neuroscientific roots. The search for predictability and safety, combined with the ease of digital searches, has become an essential filter in personal and professional decisions.
Given the high competitiveness of the market, users seek to make more reliable decisions, and research helps validate perceptions and avoid surprises, whether when looking for a doctor, a lawyer, a company, or a person they want to connect with. Everyone wants to be sure they’re choosing the best option, and digital reputation serves as a confirmation tool.
“LinkedIn, for example, shows what the candidate wants to display. Google, on the other hand, shows everything: lawsuits, social media, mentions, news articles. Searching has become an essential part of this screening process for corporate HR departments. This behavior also applies to social life. After meeting someone, it’s normal to do a quick search for their name,” adds Bulgueroni.
From typing to voice commands
According to a forecast released by Gartner, by 2026, the use of traditional search engines could be reduced by up to 25%, progressively replaced by AI-powered agents driven by voice assistants and chatbots.
According to Renan, this projection should be interpreted with caution, as the real impact will depend on the pace of user adoption and the ability of major platforms to reinvent their search experiences — as is the case with Google, which is already advancing in this direction with AI Overview, a system that provides answers in the first result based on generative AI.
The new reputation ecosystem
Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are undergoing a reinvention. Once limited, they now integrate with generative AI:
– Siri is being redesigned with AI (Apple Intelligence project).
– Alexa is being integrated with more powerful LLMs, such as Claude and proprietary models.
– Google Assistant is already merging with Gemini.
This new ecosystem connects as follows:
- Voice command →
- Generative AI →
- Search engine →
- Contextualized response
This is the new flow:
- The voice assistant receives the command (e.g., ‘Search for so-and-so’).
- It activates an AI model (GPT-4, Gemini, etc.).
- The model searches web sources (Google, Bing).
- The AI interprets and responds based on context and relevance.
After detailing the new dynamic, the CEO points out that these integrations show that to ensure a good digital reputation, it’s not enough to ‘look good’ on Google. You need to manage your online presence as a strategic asset — because now it will be read and interpreted by conversational algorithms and consulted in meta-search engines.
Minimum effort, maximum reward
From a behavioral and neuroscientific perspective, the less effort it takes to obtain information, the more likely the behavior will repeat — this is how humans create habits. Thus, automatic behavior focuses precisely on this ease of searching for and finding information about someone.
“If before you had to go to a computer, then to a phone, now you just need to speak — and the answer comes packaged in natural language. The image of people and companies is being read, interpreted, and distributed by robots, at scale, based on what they find (or don’t). Reputation isn’t just a reflection of who you are, but rather the perception algorithms have of you,” he concludes.
