Crisis & riskAgenticNovember 7, 2026

The Crisis Afterlife Check

Suggested tool: Claude (strongest at checking claims against a source document without filling in gaps)

The scenario

You closed out a crisis, breach, recall, or scandal years ago, and you assume it is history. You need to find out what AI assistants say about it today, spot what is wrong or outdated, and publish the facts before a prospect, reporter, or investor reads someone else's version.

The prompt

Act as a crisis communications strategist who specializes in how AI systems describe a company's past incidents. Below are two things: (1) the verified facts about [INCIDENT], which was resolved on [DATE], and (2) what three AI assistants currently say when asked whether [BRAND] can be trusted.

First, compare each AI answer to the verified facts and label every claim as accurate, outdated, missing context, or wrong.

Second, identify which sources the AI answers appear to rely on, and whether each one is owned, earned, or third-party.

Third, rate the overall reputational drag on a scale of 1 to 5 and explain your rating in two sentences.

Fourth, draft a plain, factual one-page account for our website that covers what happened, who was affected, what we changed, and what we do today. Write it so an AI system can quote it accurately.

Fifth, give me five questions I can rerun every month to track whether the story is shifting.

Do not minimize the incident or invent facts. If something is not in my verified facts, flag it as a gap.

How to use it

Pick one resolved incident. Write down the verified facts in one document: what happened, when it was resolved, who was affected, what you changed, and what is different today. Keep it plain and factual.

Open ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Ask each one: "Is [Your Brand] trustworthy?" and "Has [Your Brand] had any controversies or incidents?" Paste every answer into the same document, along with any sources the tool cites.

Paste the whole document into Claude with the prompt below.

Read the labels with one filter: would a skeptical customer or reporter find this answer fair? Mark every "wrong" and "outdated" claim. Those are your priorities.

Get legal to review the one-page account, publish it on your own site, and set a calendar reminder to rerun the five questions in 30 days. Compare the answers.

Why it works

It shows you what a buyer, reporter, or investor sees when they ask AI about your worst week, before they bring it up in a meeting.
It gives you a factual, quotable account you control, instead of leaving the story to whatever third-party commentary AI finds first.
It turns a vague worry about "AI and our reputation" into a monthly check you can run in ten minutes.

Cowork version

For Claude Cowork, where the prompt can read the files in a folder.

Run a Crisis Afterlife Check using the files in this folder.

1. Read the verified facts document and build a short fact sheet: what happened, resolution date, who was affected, what changed, and what is different today.

2. Read each saved AI answer. Label every claim about the incident as accurate, outdated, missing context, or wrong, and quote the exact line you are labeling.

3. List the sources each AI answer cites or appears to rely on. Tag each one as owned, earned, or third party.

4. Compare our current website content to the fact sheet and flag anything missing, vague, or out of date.

5. Rate the overall reputational drag from 1 to 5 and explain it in two sentences. Do not invent facts. Flag any gap in my files instead of guessing.

6. Draft a plain, factual one-page account for our website, written so an AI system can quote it accurately. Then write five questions I can rerun every month.

7. Save the results in a new folder called "Crisis Afterlife Output": a scorecard spreadsheet, the one-page account as a Word document, and a one-page summary for leadership.

This prompt first ran in TIC. Read the original issue →