Consumers are handing their questions, and increasingly their decisions, to AI. BrandRank.AI co-founders Pete Blackshaw and Hank Hudepohl have each written a book about that shift, from two sides of it.
Pete and Hank built BrandRank.AI together, and their books share a spine: brands are no longer seen, they are selected; the decision happens where no brand can watch; and the brand that wins is the one that can be verified. Where they part is the lens. Pete writes for the leader who must act now. Hank looks at the relationship forming between people and their agents, and what it owes the people who trust it.
How AI Agents Will Decide Your Brand's Future
Wiley · Hardcover · $30.00
Pete Blackshaw explains how AI answer engines decide which brands get recommended, and gives leaders the playbook to be one of them.
Read this ifyou are accountable for whether your brand gets chosen, and need a plan your leadership can act on this quarter.
The rise of the AI agent as your new best friend, and the urgent problems ahead
Pine Row Press · Paperback · $25.00
Hank Hudepohl explains why people are coming to trust AI agents like friends, and what brands must build before that trust is deserved.
Read this ifyou want to know why people trust the agent, and what your brand must build so the agent can vouch for it.
Pete writes about the answer engine. Hank writes about the agent it is becoming. The connective tissue is trust: whether it answers or acts, the AI in the middle recommends only what it can explain and verify.
One synthesized recommendation replaces the page of links. No page two.
The Answer EconomyThe same AI compares, books, buys, and negotiates on standing instructions.
Both booksPeople bring it the hard things first, and its recommendations ride on that trust.
Second SelfQuick answers for readers deciding where to begin.
Start with The Answer Economy if you are accountable for how your brand performs in AI answers and need a plan your leadership can act on. Start with Second Self if you want to understand where personal AI agents are taking the relationship between people and brands, and what the agent owes the people who trust it. Leaders responsible for brand trust will get the most from reading both.
The Answer Economy by Pete Blackshaw is about the answer: how AI systems decide which brands to recommend, and the frameworks leaders need to be chosen. Second Self by Hank Hudepohl is about the answerer: why people are coming to trust AI agents like friends, the problems that creates for brands and consumers, and what must be built so that trust is deserved. One is written for the leader who has to act this quarter; the other looks at where the relationship is heading.
Both argue that brands are no longer seen, they are selected; that a single AI answer replaces the ranked list, so there is no page two; and that the decision now happens in conversations no brand can watch. Both measure a brand by Visibility, Vulnerability, and Readiness, and both conclude that the brand that wins is the one whose claims can be verified, from a record machines can read.
Both authors co-founded BrandRank.AI. Pete Blackshaw, Co-Founder and CEO, has spent more than three decades studying how consumers shape brands, from Procter & Gamble and PlanetFeedback to global digital at Nestlé. Hank Hudepohl, Co-Founder and COO, was previously a product executive at Tripadvisor and Paycor and a co-founder of FirstAuto.
The Answer Economy (Wiley, hardcover, $30.00) is available now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, with bulk orders through BrandRank. Second Self (Pine Row Press, paperback, $25.00) is available now on Amazon.
