Listening & Crisis Management
Hear everything. Act before it becomes a crisis.
We run one always-on listening layer across the web, social and the AI answer engines, then wire it to a crisis capability that is ready before you need it. Detection is the bottleneck, not drafting, so we buy back the hours before a story trends, when it can still be shaped.
In short
Listening is the early-warning system. Crisis is what you do with it.
We monitor three surfaces as one: the open web (news, forums, reviews), social, and the AI answer engines that increasingly shape the first impression of your brand. That single picture gives you sentiment, share of voice and, most importantly, the earliest sign that something is turning.
Behind it sits a crisis capability built to the international standard, ISO 22361: a risk map, playbooks, roles, holding statements and drills, kept ready and activated the moment a signal crosses the line. Always-on listening plus a ready playbook are not two services. They are one loop.
Why it matters in 2026
Reputation moves faster than ever, and now the machines talk too.
Hours, not days
Roughly two in three crises escalate within a day of the first social signal, and false stories travel far faster than the correction. The window to shape a story is measured in hours.
The answer is the impression
More journeys now start with an AI answer than a click. When a model summarises your brand, that summary, not your website, is what most people take away, so it has to be monitored.
Misinformation and deepfakes
Synthetic media and coordinated misinformation are now a live reputation risk. A single convincing hoax can dent a strong brand before fact-checking ever catches up.
Figures from published 2026 industry research, including Signal AI's Velocity of Disinformation report. Cited by source, in the FAQ.
Who it is for
Built for brands where reputation is a material risk.
Regulated sectors, public-facing brands, and any organisation where a fast-moving story can move trust, sales or a share price. If a bad day online costs you real money, always-on listening plus a ready crisis capability pays for itself the first time it is needed. Usually it lands on one of these desks:
Regulated sectors, public-facing brands, and anyone where a fast story moves trust, sales or a share price. Usually it lands on one of these desks:
- The CEO or founder, whose name and share price ride on how the worst day is handled.
- The Comms or PR director, who owns the response and needs the war room ready, not improvised.
- The Brand manager, protecting how the brand is perceived across social and the AI answers.
- The Head of marketing, defending sentiment, share of voice and demand from a fast-moving story.
- Legal, risk and compliance, who need the monitoring, the record and a response that holds up.
The listening layer
Three surfaces, one picture.
Most brands watch social and stop there. The story is forming across all three surfaces at once, and the earliest signal is often on the open web or inside an AI answer, not on a feed. We watch all three and score them as one.
Web listening
News, trade press, forums, review sites and communities, the signals that form before a story reaches the mainstream.
Social listening
Every platform, in real time, with sentiment and emotion, share of voice against competitors and spike detection.
AI-answer listening
What ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews say about you, per engine: presence, position, citation and sentiment.
From signal to insight
Narratives, not just mentions.
Counting mentions tells you volume after the fact. The value is in reading the story as it forms.
Narrative clustering
We group posts by what they mean, not by keyword, so a story built from many small, related signals surfaces as one, even when nothing is spiking yet.
Velocity and early warning
Acceleration is the predictive signal. A narrative doubling fast, from atypical accounts, crossing platforms, is flagged before it trends.
Influence and share of voice
Who is amplifying it and how far, and how your share of voice compares to competitors, on social and inside AI answers.
Listening meets crisis
Detection is the bottleneck.
Most crisis damage comes from missing the early signal, not from writing the statement slowly. So we invest where it pays: catching the story while it is still small.
We act at the line, not the peak
The moment velocity crosses the threshold, a pre-agreed first action fires. Not when it is trending. When it is barely a whisper.
Four tiers, one pre-agreed response
Monitor, prepare, engage, escalate. Every signal has a first move already decided, so nobody improvises during the worst hour.
- Eight named early-warning signals, from atypical accounts to brand-critical content in AI answers.
- A weekly review for high-risk brands, so readiness never goes stale.
Crisis management
Built to the standard. Ready before you need it.
The capability is built to ISO 22361, the international standard for crisis management, and the response is guided by Coombs' Situational Crisis Communication Theory: match the response to the level of responsibility, from a clear denial when a claim is false to an apology and corrective action when it is not.
The first hour
From signal to statement in under an hour.
Being activatable 24/7 is only real if the clock actually runs. The listening layer makes minute-zero detection possible, so the first hour is a rehearsed sequence, not a scramble. A false story can outrun the correction, so the opening minutes decide the year.
We can compress the response, not the facts. We never speculate ahead of what is verified.
Start listening
Bring us a brand to protect. We will show you what is already being said.
Independent by design
The best tools, run for you. No lock-in.
The platform vendors want you on their licence. We would rather give you the best of each surface as one answer.
Best of every platform
Brandwatch, Meltwater, Talkwalker and the answer-engine monitors, run by us for the job at hand, not one licence you are stuck inside.
Nothing to manage
No long procurement, no seats to administer, no contract to unwind later. You get the picture and the response; we carry the stack.
We say what it cannot do
AI listening measures and flags; it does not rewrite an answer. We are clear about where monitoring ends and correction begins, and we do not replace your team.
Proof
Eight years of listening. A crisis capability on standby.
Real programmes for real brands, including major regulated names, with the frameworks and the response team ready to activate.
A major bank
Always-on listening across web, social and the AI answers, feeding content decisions and an anti-fraud response, with a crisis playbook kept on standby.
A regulated brand
ISO 22361 crisis readiness with roles, drills and pre-approved statements, activated for a live issue and stood down after recovery.
A consumer brand
Narrative listening that caught a story forming in a niche community and helped shape it, hours before it reached the press.
Representative of our work; named client results are being cleared for publication and will be shared here. Figures describe Wise Pirates. Frameworks referenced, ISO 22361 and Coombs' SCCT, are recognised public standards; 2026 industry figures are cited by source in the FAQ.
Ways to work with us
Listen always. Respond when it counts.
Listening programme
The three-surface listening layer, run as a retainer, with AI-summarised insight and share-of-voice tracking every week.
Crisis readiness
The risk map, playbooks, roles, holding statements and drills, built to ISO 22361 and kept current, so the response is ready before you need it.
Crisis activation
The staffed war room switches on the moment a signal crosses the line, and stays on through response and recovery.
Connected
Part of the wider reputation engine.
Listening feeds, and is fed by, the rest of what we do.
FAQ
The questions buyers actually ask.
Are listening and crisis management two services or one?
What do you mean by AI listening, or answer-engine listening?
Which listening tools do you use?
What does "activatable 24/7" actually mean for crisis?
How fast can you catch a brewing crisis?
Do you follow a recognised crisis framework?
Can you fix what ChatGPT or Google says about us?
Where do these numbers come from?
Listening & Crisis Management
Hear it first. Shape it early.
Tell us what you need to protect. We will show you the listening layer and the crisis capability behind it.
Talk to us →
