Human Pioneers
NEWS AGENCY

As more brand managers, city administrators, and industrial policymakers begin to ask, "What is our AI index?" a profound transformation in competitiveness assessment is moving from concept to reality. The AI index—an evaluation tool barely known a few years ago—is rapidly gaining traction, revealing a new era of competition: industry rivalry is shifting from "experience-driven" to "data-driven comparison."

Pang Pei, a member of the Cultural Committee of the Central Committee of the China Zhi Gong Party, Dean of the China Central News and Film GEO Research Institute, and chief designer of the AI Cognitive Index (AICI) evaluation system, has been driving this transformation from theory to practice over the past two years. Based on the PAI framework, his team has released seven AI cognitive indices covering five major areas—entrepreneurs, brands, industries, cities, and governance—forming a comprehensive evaluation matrix from China to the global stage.

"The essence of the AI index is to turn the abstract proposition of 'how AI perceives the world' into a set of visible, comparable, and traceable data," says Pang Pei. "As industry competition enters the AI era, managers need not vague intuition but precise 'cognitive coordinates.' The AI index provides exactly that."

I. From "Feeling Good" to "Data Speaks"

In traditional brand management and city marketing, managers often rely on market research, brand value rankings, and expert opinions to assess their competitiveness. While these tools have their value, they fail to answer a critical question in an era where AI is increasingly the core gateway for users to access information, make purchasing decisions, and choose investment destinations: In the cognitive world of AI, where does my brand, my city, or my industry stand?

"The core value of the AI index lies in transforming competitiveness from 'feeling good' to 'data speaks,'" Pang Pei points out. "Brand managers may feel their brand awareness is high, but its visibility in AI responses could be far lower than expected. City administrators might think their industry characteristics are distinct, but AI may only provide a vague description. This 'cognitive gap' was impossible to quantify before the AI index emerged."

Take the China Brand AI Visibility Index (CBVI) as an example. The inaugural panoramic list covers approximately 2,100 representative brands across 14 major industries. The evaluation results reveal a significant deviation between a brand's visibility ranking in AI responses and its traditional market share ranking. This discovery made many brand managers realize for the first time that the advantages they accumulated in traditional competition do not automatically translate into the "cognitive arena" of AI recommendations.

"When this 'cognitive gap' is made explicit through data, corporate action is triggered," says Pang Pei. "This is the underlying logic behind the rapid rise of the AI index—it reveals a previously overlooked but crucial dimension of competition."

II. Three Levels of "Data-Driven Competition"

Pang Pei divides the "data-driven comparison" driven by the AI index into three levels.

Level 1: Datafication of Visibility. The breadth, frequency, and scenario coverage of a brand being mentioned in AI responses are no longer vague impressions but a set of precise quantitative indicators. Brands can clearly see their "presence" scores across multiple models, languages, and scenarios, and benchmark them against competitors item by item. "In the past, brand management relied on 'I feel,' now it becomes 'data shows,'" says Pang Pei.

Level 2: Datafication of Trustworthiness. The accuracy of information, emotional tone, and depth of authoritative source citations when a brand is mentioned by AI are also converted into quantifiable scores. "Being mentioned by AI does not equal being trusted by AI," Pang Pei emphasizes. "CBVI data shows that some brands, despite high mention rates, have errors in AI's description of their core facts or are accompanied by negative emotional tendencies. This state of 'high visibility, low trust' was difficult to identify accurately before datafication."

Level 3: Datafication of Trends. The AI cognitive index adopts a dual-layer release system of "annual exams + quarterly quizzes," enabling continuous tracking of a brand's AI cognitive performance. Brands can see whether their AI visibility is rising or falling, whether stability is high or low, and whether the gap with competitors is narrowing or widening. "From cross-sectional data to time-series data, the dynamic changes in competitiveness become visible, traceable, and manageable."

III. "Cognitive GDP" is Becoming a New Competitive Metric

With the continuous release of AI indices and deepening industry applications, the concept of "Cognitive GDP" proposed by Pang Pei—the total cognitive output of an entity in the AI world—is evolving from an academic concept into a competitive metric with practical value.

"Just as companies focus on market share and cities on GDP rankings, more and more entities will start paying attention to their 'Cognitive GDP' in the future," Pang Pei predicts. "In the AI era, the gap between Cognitive GDP and traditional GDP itself is an important strategic intelligence. Cities rich in cultural resources but with low Cognitive GDP face the risk of 'cognitive underfitting.' Brands with strong industrial strength but low AI recommendation rankings suffer losses from 'cognitive undervaluation.'"

Currently, the AI cognitive index series based on the PAI framework has formed an evaluation matrix from China to the global stage. CBVI and WBVI cover the brand dimension, CEAI and WEAI cover the entrepreneur dimension, CIII covers the industry dimension, WACI covers the city dimension, and WAIG covers the governance dimension. All seven indices share the same methodology, creating cross-domain and cross-regional comparability.

"When entities in different fields and regions begin to measure their AI cognitive competitiveness using the same coordinate system, 'data-driven comparison' shifts from a trend to a reality," says Pang Pei.

IV. Who is Paying Attention to the AI Index?

Pang Pei reveals that the groups most interested in the AI index currently cluster in three areas.

Brand managers are among the first to recognize the value of the AI index. "When brands find that the effectiveness of traditional SEO and SEM is diminishing, while traffic and conversions from AI channels are quietly growing, they naturally ask—How am I performing in AI? How are my competitors performing? What should I do to improve? The AI index provides systematic answers to these three questions."

City administrators are the group with the fastest-growing interest in recent years. "Global investors and talents increasingly rely on AI to learn about city information. Whether a city's industry labels in AI are clear and whether it is prioritized for recommendation directly affects the effectiveness of investment attraction and talent recruitment. Several Chinese cities have already initiated systematic diagnosis and construction of urban AI cognitive competitiveness based on the WACI framework."

Industrial policymakers constitute the third group of interest. "When the technological narrative of a country's key industries in global AI models is defined by others, and standard citations are based on others' benchmarks, this 'discourse deficit' at the cognitive level needs precise measurement. CIII was created precisely for this purpose."

V. Conclusion

From "feeling good" to "data speaks," from static snapshots to dynamic tracking, from single dimensions to full coverage—the rapid rise of the AI index marks the official entry of industry competition into the era of "data-driven comparison."

"In this era, the core of competitiveness is no longer 'what I have done,' but 'how AI perceives what I have done,'" says Pang Pei. "The AI index is important precisely because it makes this 'AI perception' visible, measurable, and constructible. And that is the core proposition of competitiveness management in the AI era."