The AI infrastructure company behind the visibl analytics platform, today announced a strategic partnership with the AI-Media Strategies (AIMES) Lab at Northeastern University. This collaboration brings together a leader in applied AI technology with a premier academic research center to study and shape the future of media and communications in an AI-driven world.
The partnership is founded on the shared understanding that the rise of generative AI agents represents a fundamental paradigm shift, changing how information is structured, verified, and consumed. As AI chatbots and answer engines become the new interface for accessing information, this collaboration will produce critical, evidence-based research and frameworks to guide organizations through this transition responsibly and effectively.
Bord Labs is pioneering a new discipline called Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), the practice of structuring information for reliable retrieval by AI agents, powered by its visibl platform and underlying Agentic Data Layer. The AIMES Lab is at the forefront of researching AI's impact on media industries, from workflows and ethics to platform governance.
"We are not just witnessing the next evolution of search; we are at the dawn of the agentic web," said the Founder and CEO of Bord Labs. "For this new ecosystem to be trustworthy and effective, it requires a new set of rules and a foundational layer of structured, verified data. Partnering with a distinguished institution like the AIMES Lab provides the academic rigor necessary to develop ethical standards and best practices for the industry, ensuring that the future of information is both innovative and responsible."
Defining the Field of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): A joint research initiative will formally define the principles of AEO, establishing it as a critical competency for media, marketing, and communications professionals.
Pioneering Research in AI Governance: Using the visibl Agentic Data Layer as a case study, the collaboration will explore emerging governance and ethics questions, aiming to publish frameworks for the responsible deployment of brand and organizational information by AI agents.
Bridging Industry and Academia: Bord Labs will provide the visibl platform as a hands-on educational tool for Northeastern's "AI in Media Industries" course, giving students practical experience with the next generation of AI-powered workflows.
This collaboration will produce a series of co-authored research papers, industry white papers, and educational materials designed to serve as a bridge for the media and communications workforce as it adapts to this new technological paradigm.
"The pace of change in the media landscape is unprecedented, and it is essential that we ground our understanding of AI's impact in empirical research," said the Director of the AIMES Lab. "This partnership with Bord Labs gives us a unique window into the applied side of AI communications. Access to the visibl platform will allow our researchers and students to move beyond the theoretical and engage directly with the tools and strategies that are actively shaping the future of the industry."
Bord Labs is an AI infrastructure company building the foundational data layer for the agentic web. Its flagship product, visibl, is a pioneering AI analytics platform for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), empowering organizations to manage their visibility and ensure their information is accurately represented in AI-powered chat and search experiences.
The AI-Media Strategies Lab (AIMES Lab) at Northeastern University focuses on the use of AI technologies in media industries, providing evidence-based recommendations to organizations, and producing research leveraging methods such as surveys, focus groups, experiments, and data analysis. The Lab seeks to be an educational bridge as the media and communications workforce adapts to a new technological paradigm.