How Do I Handle AI Answers That Name Current or Former Employees Instead of the Company?

Why do assistants recommend people rather than firms?

In law, medicine, financial advice, real estate and other trades, clients choose individuals, and the web reflects it:

• Directories profile individuals. Attorney, doctor and agent directories give each professional a detailed page, often more detailed than the firm's own.
• Reviews name people. A review such as "Ask for Priya, best advice we ever had" ties the praise to a person rather than the practice.
• Practitioner listings. Google's Business Profile guidelines treat doctors, dentists, lawyers, financial planners and insurance or real estate agents as individual practitioners. Public-facing practitioners can have their own profiles, separate from the organisation's.
• Personal content. Articles, talks, podcast appearances and social profiles build up around the person, not the firm.
• Firm pages that say little. A team page with names and photos, but no text on who does what, gives assistants little to connect.

The result is that "Who is the best estate planning lawyer in [city]?" gets an answer naming a person, sometimes with no firm and sometimes with a firm they left years ago.

How should I track AI answers that recommend an employee but not the employer?

Build a list of your client-facing professionals, current and former, with the dates former staff left. Then run the questions clients ask, such as "best [service] in [city]", "[service] specialist near me", "who should I see for [problem]", and "[person name]". Run each several times across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features.

Classify every answer that names one of your people:

Two measures summarise it:

• Employer attribution rate: answers that name one of your current people and also your firm, divided by all answers naming one of your current people.
• Stale attribution count: answers placing a former employee at your firm, which you want at zero.

For example, if 40 answers name one of your current professionals and 22 also name your firm, the attribution rate is 55%. With 40 answers, that rate has a margin of about ±15 points, so treat month-to-month changes smaller than about 20 points as noise, or run more answers. Record which sources each answer cites. Person-only answers usually cite directory profiles and reviews, so those are the pages to fix. Why a business can be absent from answers even when its people are present is covered in why your business does not appear in AI answers.

How do you attach your company to current employees?

• A bio page for each professional on your domain, with their name, role, firm name, office, specialisms, qualifications and a short account of the work they do. Put it in text, not only in a photo caption.
• Structured data on bio pages, such as Person with worksFor pointing to your organisation, consistent with the visible text.
• Directory profiles that name the firm and link to the bio page. Ask each professional to check their own profiles on the main directories in your field.
• Firm-level reviews. Ask clients to leave reviews on the firm's profile rather than only on individual profiles; when clients name the person who helped them in their own words, the review connects both.
• Bylines on articles and talks that include the firm name.
• Practitioner profiles set up correctly. Google's guidelines say that where several public-facing practitioners work at one location, the organisation should have its own profile, separate from the practitioners'. A solo practitioner at a branded location should share a profile with the organisation, named in a format such as "Brand: Practitioner Name".

How do I remove former attorneys from AI search results for my law firm?

You cannot delete a name from an AI answer, but you can remove the sources that place a former attorney at your firm. Work through them in order:

1. Take down the bio page. Remove the attorney from the team page and either remove the bio page or redirect it to a relevant practice area page. Do not leave an active bio online. After the page changes, Google's Refresh Outdated Content tool can ask Google to update a stale search result, provided the page has actually been removed or significantly changed.
2. Remove other mentions on your site, such as practice area pages, case results that name them as current counsel, blog bylines that describe them as "a partner at the firm", and office contact pages. Past articles can keep the byline, with the bio link removed.
3. Update your Google Business Profile and other firm listings: photos, descriptions and any mention of the attorney. If a separate practitioner profile places them at your address, ask the attorney to update it, or contact Business Profile support if your firm manages it.
4. Directories. Remove the attorney from your firm's pages on legal directories. Ask the attorney to update their own profiles and their state bar record to their new firm. A departure checklist or agreement can make this a routine step.
5. Press and announcements. Their new firm's announcement is useful, because it gives assistants a newer, dated source placing them elsewhere.
6. Retest with "[attorney name] lawyer", "[attorney name] [firm]" and your practice-area questions, monthly until stale attributions stop.

There is a professional rules reason to do this promptly. Most states' versions of ABA Model Rule 7.1 prohibit false or misleading communications about a lawyer's services. The commentary to the Model Rule says lawyers may not imply that they practise together in one firm when they do not. ABA Formal Opinion 489 addresses the obligations of firms and departing lawyers, including notice to clients, who have the right to choose their lawyer. Check your own jurisdiction's rules, particularly on firm names that include former partners.

What if the former employee is still the one being recommended?

That is often fair: the recommendation belongs to them. What you can influence is whether answers also recommend your firm for the same question. Build firm-level evidence for the service: current professionals' bio pages, case studies or matters described within your rules, firm reviews and clear practice-area pages. Where answers still say "[former employee] at [firm]", treat it as a stale attribution and trace the source. Similar issues with old pages driving wrong details are covered in which old pages, PDFs or docs make AI repeat wrong details about your business.

What might an illustrative case look like?

Consider an illustrative ten-lawyer family law firm. Answers to "best divorce lawyer in [city]" named two of its attorneys, but only a third of those answers named the firm. They also named a partner who had left 18 months earlier "of [firm]". The former partner's bio page was still live, unlinked from the team page, and three directory profiles still listed the firm. The firm redirected the old bio and asked the former partner to update the directory profiles, which they did within a month. It expanded its current attorneys' bio pages and added worksFor markup. It also asked clients to review the firm's profile. Three months later, stale attributions had stopped and the attribution rate for current attorneys had risen from 33% to 61%.

What do people ask about employees in AI answers?

Should we stop employees building personal profiles?

No. Personal visibility helps the firm when the firm is named alongside it. Ask for the firm name and a link to the bio page in every profile.

Can we keep a former employee's articles on our site?

Usually yes, with a byline that does not describe them as current staff and without a link to an active bio.

How long do stale attributions last?

Often a few months after the main sources change, longer if directory profiles are not updated. Track them monthly.