Short answer: make your brand’s facts structured, authoritative, and discoverable — and feed them into the systems AIs actually read. Key tool types that help brands show up more in AI answers:

1. Official search guidance + monitoring

• Google Search Console — monitor indexing, snippets, and which pages are being used in Search / AI features. Google explicitly says pages must be indexed and follow Search rules to be eligible for AI features. (developers.google.com)

2. Structured data / schema tools

• Schema.org & Google’s structured-data guidelines (FAQPage, Product, Speakable, etc.). Add JSON‑LD so machines can parse your FAQs, product info, paywall signals, and voice-ready content. Speakable/schema helps content be used for audio/assistant replies. (developers.google.com)
• Generator / test tools: Rich Results Test, Schema generators (many CMS plugins have built-in markup).

3. Knowledge-graph / entity management platforms

• Yext, Kalicube, and similar “knowledge graph” products let you build a single source-of-truth (store hours, products, people, canonical descriptions) and push consistent, structured facts to publishers and platforms that feed AI knowledge graphs. Yext and others explicitly position knowledge graphs for better presence in AI-driven answers. (yext.com)

4. Authoritative public sources (the things AIs already read)

• Create and maintain profiles/pages on the sources that feed knowledge graphs: official website (with schema), Google Business Profile, Wikipedia/Wikidata (when appropriate), Crunchbase/LinkedIn/industry directories, major press mentions. Claiming a Google Knowledge Panel and keeping those authoritative citations consistent helps your entity appear. Google documents how to claim/verify panels. (support.google.com)

5. Local / place data & APIs

• Google Business Profile, Apple Maps Connect, Bing Places — and Google’s Places API has AI-powered place summaries; accurate place data increases the chance your business is used in AI place answers. Keep NAP, categories, hours, and reviews consistent. (developers.google.com)

6. RAG / knowledge-base tooling (for brands powering their own AI assistants)

• Vector DBs and RAG stacks (Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, vector + embeddings + LLMs) let you surface your proprietary, up‑to‑date content as grounded context so any AI you run will answer using your official materials (reducing hallucination and ensuring branded answers reference your assets). Pinecone and Weaviate docs explain RAG ingestion → retrieval → augmentation workflows. (pinecone.io)

7. SEO & SERP-feature tracking tools

• Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Screaming Frog, Rank trackers — to monitor featured snippets, knowledge panels, “AI overview” appearances, and where your pages are cited. Use these to prioritize pages that already rank in snippet/knowledge positions. (Google also recommends the same SEO fundamentals for AI features.) (developers.google.com)

8. Content & format tactics (tools + templates)

• FAQ / Q&A pages, concise how‑tos, structured product/spec pages, and “answers-first” content pieces map well to snippet-style AI answers. Add explicit Q→A markup (FAQPage / QAPage) and short, authoritative summaries at the top of pages so AIs can easily extract them. Use CMS plugins (Yoast / Rank Math / built-in CMS schema) to implement markup quickly. (developers.google.com)

9. Controls & legal/rights management

• Google provides “preview controls” and guidance for how content may be used in AI Overviews and how to opt out (note: options are limited; full opt-out usually means noindex). Keep legal/rights teams aware. (developers.google.com)

Quick prioritized checklist (practical next steps)

• Verify your brand’s Google Business Profile and other place listings. (developers.google.com)
• Add/validate schema (FAQPage, Product, Speakable) and test with Rich Results Test / Search Console. (developers.google.com)
• Build or centralize a knowledge graph (Yext or internal) to ensure consistent facts across platforms. (yext.com)
• Publish concise, authoritative summary content and get it cited on trusted third‑party sites (press, directories) so search knowledge systems learn your entity. (kalicube.com)
• If you run your own assistant or branded AI, implement RAG with an embeddings store + vector DB (Pinecone/Weaviate) so your brand content is the explicit source for answers. (pinecone.io)

Caveat / reality check

• No tool can guarantee AI answers will quote you — Google and other AI systems decide algorithmically which sources to use and indexing / trust signals matter. Follow the technical requirements and authoritative‑source playbook and measure results. (developers.google.com)

If you want, I can:

• produce a one‑page prioritized plan for your brand (which pages to schema‑mark up, which sources to claim, what to feed a vector DB), or
• audit one page and show which schema and knowledge‑graph steps to take first.