Frequently Asked Questions: Authority Intelligence™, Profile Optimization, and Lilypath
LinkedIn’s AI technology
LinkedIn uses multiple AI systems to read and interpret your professional profile. These include several models that process your complete profile across multiple LinkedIn surfaces (including job matching, people recommendations, and notifications), and the Generative Recommender, which ranks content in your feed based on your behavioral patterns alongside a mathematical representation of your profile.
All of these systems consider consistency between your claims and your activity, perform better with comprehensive profile data, and understand natural language — meaning clear prose about your expertise outperforms keyword lists. Importantly, LinkedIn’s AI understands semantic relationships between topics, so a profile that clearly establishes your expertise in one area also strengthens your visibility for related topics, even without using those exact keywords.
Based on LinkedIn’s published research and their March 2026 Engineering Blog, LinkedIn’s AI evaluates your profile at multiple stages:
- At the retrieval stage, a large language model reads your profile text and converts it into a mathematical representation of your expertise — this determines what content is considered for your feed and whose feeds your content can appear in
- At the ranking stage, a separate system (the Generative Recommender) processes your engagement history alongside your profile to determine the order of content in your feed
- Beyond your feed, 360Brew reads your complete profile to inform job matching, people recommendations, and notifications
All of these systems look for consistency between your profile claims and your content activity, improve with more context (comprehensive profiles outperform sparse ones), and process natural language — clear prose matters more than keyword stuffing.
Observable platform changes since 2025 (documented by independent researchers analyzing millions of posts) confirm a shift from engagement-based ranking to semantic relevance-based ranking, consistent with the Generative Recommender’s deployment.
Our methodology is grounded in multiple layers of evidence.
First, LinkedIn’s own published research: the 360Brew paper (January 2025) documents the profile-reading architecture, the Generative Recommender paper (February 2026) documents the feed ranking system, and a March 2026 LinkedIn Engineering Blog post confirms the current feed architecture is in production. This is first-party evidence from LinkedIn’s own engineering team.
Second, confirmation from LinkedIn engineers presenting at industry conferences.
Third, independent validation through analysis of 3.4 million posts and 395,000 profiles showing observable changes consistent with deployment.
We distinguish between what’s documented (profile completeness matters, consistency creates pattern recognition, more context improves AI comprehension, multiple AI systems process your profile at different stages) and what’s professional inference (specific section weights, character-level positioning). But the principles we apply are sound regardless of exactly which system variant is deployed—because they’re based on how transformer models process text and how humans scan profiles.
Three common reasons:
- You’re presenting for humans, not AI. Most profile advice focuses on how humans read profiles. But LinkedIn’s AI systems make the first decision about whether anyone sees your profile at all. Multiple AI models read your profile to build a representation of your professional identity — if your profile is vague or inconsistent, the AI’s understanding of you will be too.
- Your value proposition is buried. AI systems process information sequentially. If your most important credentials appear late in your headline or About section, the AI may not weight them appropriately when building the expertise embedding that drives your visibility.
- Your terminology doesn’t match what people search. You might call yourself a “transformation catalyst” while recruiters search for “change management leader.” But this goes beyond keyword matching: LinkedIn’s AI understands semantic relationships between topics, so clear expertise language actually performs better than keyword lists. Generic language like “results-driven professional” gives the AI nothing meaningful to work with.
The good news: your qualifications aren’t the problem. How you’re communicating them is.
Any LLM can generate polished text. But no LLM can replicate the combination of positioning expertise, knowledge, experience, and patent-pending methodology Lilypath’s co-founders have infused into every report.
Lilypath is different because:
Strategic judgment can’t be prompted. What signals credibility to senior decision-makers? How does authority get established in specific industries? What separates professionals who attract opportunities from those who don’t? No prompt transfers 25+ years of executive positioning experience.
Custom scoring, not generic output. Our assessment framework is informed by 360Brew research and refined through extensive real-world deployment. You get specific scores showing exactly what’s working and what isn’t.
Copy-ready recommendations. You receive complete, individualized, industry- and role-appropriate rewrite text for every section, not “try this and iterate.” Implement immediately, no guesswork.
To replicate Lilypath’s results, you wouldn’t need better prompts—you’d need to build an entire system. And you’d be starting from scratch, without the knowhow that comes from decades of working with leaders, and without the methodology refinement that comes from real-world deployment across hundreds of professional profiles.
The Lilypath Product
Authority Intelligence™ is Lilypath’s patent-pending framework for understanding, measuring, and shaping how AI systems interpret your professional authority.
Today, AI makes the first decision about whether you get seen. Before a recruiter calls, a prospect reaches out, or an investor engages, LinkedIn’s AI systems and the Generative Recommender read your profile to categorize your seniority, assess your credibility, and decide whether to surface you for opportunities. Most professionals never see this happening.
Lilypath helps AI understand who you are and why you matter.
Authority Intelligence makes that interpretation visible, measurable, and actionable. It starts with your Comprehensive Blueprint, a scored diagnostic of your LinkedIn profile that shows exactly how AI reads your authority today, section by section, with complete copy-ready rewrite recommendations you can implement immediately.
But the Blueprint is just the beginning. Lilypath is building toward continuous monitoring and real-time interpretation intelligence, a system of record for how professional authority is understood by machines. The goal is to give professionals ongoing visibility into how AI interprets them. Not just a single snapshot, but an evolving picture they can measure and govern over time.
Unlike traditional profile writing or personal branding, Authority Intelligence isn’t about amplifying identity. It’s about protecting accurate interpretation. The methodology is grounded in LinkedIn’s published 360Brew research, validated by independent analysis of 395,000 profiles and 3+ million posts, and built by a team with deep experience in enterprise AI strategy, Fortune 500 executive positioning, and company-building at scale.
Authority Intelligence is what powers every Lilypath product, from individual Blueprints to organizational solutions.
Every Blueprint is generated by Lilypath’s patent-pending Authority Intelligence™ system — proprietary scoring models, a curated research dataset, and automated generation logic owned by the company. The methodology was architected by co-founder Dan Nestle (PRWeek Dashboard 25 AI Pioneer), and is built into the platform — so every Blueprint reflects that rigor at scale, not one person’s time.
Dan brings 25+ years of Fortune 500 communications leadership and has been recognized as a PRWeek Dashboard 25 AI Pioneer (2023, 2024) and Propel 100 Most Influential PR Tech Leader Worldwide (2025). His executive positioning methodology is built into the infrastructure that powers every assessment.
This isn’t generic AI output. It’s a patent-pending purpose-built system with expert methodology at its core.
Learn more about the full Lilypath team in About Lilypath below.
Most services focus on how human readers perceive your profile—but LinkedIn’s AI systems make the first decision about whether anyone sees your profile at all. Multiple systems — including concurrently running models and the Generative Recommender — read and process your profile to determine your visibility across search results, content distribution, job recommendations, and “People You May Know.” Our patent-pending methodology is built specifically for how these systems evaluate and categorize professionals. We align your profile for accurate AI interpretation first, which improves human perception as well.
Beyond patent-pending methodology, our founders bring unusual credibility. One has pioneered enterprise-scale Generative Engine Optimization with patent-pending technology. Another has been the CEO, made the exits, and sat in rooms where professional credibility gets evaluated. The third has spent 25 years creating executive positioning strategies for global leaders. We’re not teaching theory—we’re applying direct experience.
Analysis, content generation, and QA times can vary depending on a number of factors, such as the size of supplemental uploads and overall system usage. That said, typically you can expect your report to be available for download on the order page and delivered by email within 30 minutes of completing your intake form.
We understand that professionals can fall into multiple categories. Select the track that best describes your current situation. You’ll have the opportunity to provide more nuanced information in the intake form.
Choose Student if: You’re an undergrad, recent graduate, or early in your career. Your profile on LinkedIn is sparse or nonexistent, and you need to make your emerging experience legible to AI systems from the start.
Choose Job Seeker if: You’re between roles right now and need to move fast, or you just want to get a new job. You need a tactical, action-ready Blueprint that ensures AI surfaces you to the right recruiters and employers immediately.
Choose Authority Builder if: You’re an executive, consultant, or industry expert building authority or pursuing strategic opportunities like board seats, advisory roles, business development, or career advancement. You need to ensure AI accurately interprets the full depth of your expertise.
If your situation spans multiple categories—say you’re a thought leader who’s also considering a career transition—choose the track that reflects your primary goal and tell us about the rest in the intake form.
Most resume and profile writers focus on polished text geared toward human subjectivity. Lilypath’s platform provides intelligence—a scored diagnostic of how AI systems interpret your authority today, plus the strategic recommendations to correct what they’re getting wrong.
Your Blueprint includes complete rewrite text you can implement immediately, but that’s an output of the analysis, not the product itself. The patent-pending methodology behind it is built on published AI research, independent analysis of hundreds of thousands of profiles, and 25+ years of executive positioning expertise.
The Progress Check ($99) is designed for returning customers who’ve implemented their Blueprint recommendations and want to measure how their AI interpretation has changed. It’s a focused reassessment that shows what’s improved, what’s shifted, and what to adjust next.
Lilypath’s methodology is the subject of a filed patent application. This means the approach behind your Blueprint—how we score, analyze, and generate recommendations for AI interpretation—is original intellectual property, not a wrapper around existing tools. The patent covers the system that makes Authority Intelligence™ possible. The patent application covers a comprehensive system architecture — from how we ingest and normalize your professional signals through how we score, benchmark, and generate recommendations.
We will. Our initial focus is LinkedIn, where the AI infrastructure — including 360Brew, the Generative Recommender, and supporting systems — represents the most advanced AI interpretation system for professional profiles. Your profile is processed by multiple AI models across multiple surfaces, creating the most complex and consequential AI evaluation of any professional platform. Our patent-pending methodology is designed to extend to additional platforms and use cases as AI-mediated discovery evolves.
The Details
After checkout, you’ll receive simple instructions for downloading your LinkedIn profile as a PDF (it takes about 30 seconds). You upload the PDF through our secure intake form, along with any additional documents like your resume or portfolio that help us understand your full story.
Every professional’s situation is different, and we can’t predict or guarantee specific outcomes. Results depend on many factors beyond your profile, including your industry, content activity, network, and market conditions.
What we can guarantee is that your Blueprint will give you a thorough diagnostic of how AI currently interprets your authority, along with specific, actionable recommendations you can implement immediately. The changes you make based on your Blueprint are designed to improve the accuracy of how AI systems understand your expertise—but individual results will vary.
Yes. If you’re not satisfied with the quality and actionability of your Blueprint, contact us within 30 days and we’ll make it right.
We can’t guarantee specific outcomes like job offers, connection requests, or engagement rates—those depend on factors beyond your profile, including your content activity, industry dynamics, and market conditions. But we guarantee you’ll receive a thorough, actionable Blueprint with specific recommendations you can implement.
Every customer to date has been satisfied with their Blueprint (see our testimonials). Our methodology is based on published research and independent analysis of how LinkedIn’s AI (360Brew) processes and ranks profiles. We provide specific, measurable recommendations—not vague advice.
That said, we can’t predict or guarantee specific outcomes. Individual results depend on implementation, industry dynamics, content activity, and market conditions. What we guarantee is a thorough, actionable Blueprint with specific recommendations grounded in how AI systems actually interpret professional profiles.
Your LinkedIn profile PDF, intake form responses, and supporting documents are used to generate your Blueprint and improve our methodology. We do not sell your personal information. We work with a limited number of service providers (such as payment processing and secure file storage) who are contractually obligated to protect your data.
Order and deliverable data is retained for up to three years after your last service delivery, and you can request deletion of your personal information at any time by contacting us at [email protected]. For full details, see our Privacy Policy.
About Lilypath
Lilypath was founded by three professionals who bring complementary expertise to Authority Intelligence™.
Erin Lanuti, Co-Founder and CEO is an enterprise Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) pioneer and creator of OmniearnedID, a patent-pending intelligence platform. She brings the strategic lens for how AI systems interpret authority at organizational scale.
Dan Nestle, Co-Founder and Chief Product & Intelligence Officer has 25+ years of Fortune 500 communications leadership, recognized as a PRWeek Dashboard 25 AI Pioneer (2023, 2024) and Propel 100 Most Influential PR Tech Leader Worldwide (2025). Dan created the methodology and scoring system behind every Blueprint.
Todd Grossman, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer spent 20+ years building and scaling media and technology companies. As CEO of Americas at Talkwalker, he led through a successful exit to Marlin Equity Partners, with earlier exits to WPP and Cision. Todd has been in the boardrooms where executive credibility gets evaluated—he built Lilypath to address what he saw firsthand.
Lilypath isn’t career coaching. It’s Authority Intelligence™ built by people who understand how professional credibility works at the highest levels—and how AI is changing the way it’s evaluated.
Lilypath grew out of more than 25 years of executive communications and positioning work by co-founder Dan Nestle. Over the last two years, Dan had been building AI-powered content and positioning systems for executives and founders through his consultancy. Because LinkedIn is the primary platform for most of his clients, he included LinkedIn analysis in his assessments.
When LinkedIn deployed its AI reasoning engine — and later revealed an even more complex AI infrastructure including the Generative Recommender — Dan recognized a fundamental shift: we had moved from a world where people read you to a world where systems interpret you first. He built a diagnostic tool to evaluate how AI was actually interpreting professionals’ profiles, developed a scoring rubric, and the early Blueprint report was born.
Dan ran a report for his friend and longtime mentor Todd Grossman, a former CEO with multiple successful exits. Todd immediately recognized how much professionals and college students needed this. From years in executive roles and teaching, he understood that when AI quietly mediates opportunity, you never see what you lost. Five days later, they founded Lilypath together.
One of their first reports went to Erin Lanuti, then Chief Innovation Officer at Omnicom PR. Todd wanted someone who would evaluate the methodology with a technologist’s eye. When Erin saw the report and her own results, she became an instant believer. She also saw what Dan and Todd hadn’t yet fully articulated: that this wasn’t branding, SEO, or reputation management. It was a new professional discipline entirely, one she would come to define as Authority Intelligence.
Three months later, she joined as co-founder and CEO, bringing enterprise GEO expertise and the strategic vision to build the category.
Lilypath is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by LinkedIn Corporation. Implementation of recommendations does not guarantee specific outcomes—individual results will vary.
Profession Blueprints
Do you offer Blueprints built for specific professions?
Yes. Alongside the Student, Job Seeker, and Authority Builder paths, three profession tracks are available, For Engineers, For Attorneys, and For Accountants & CPAs.
Every Blueprint runs on the same patent-pending Authority Intelligence™ methodology. The profession tracks add a layer on top of it, calibrated to the credentials, terminology, and professional standards that govern how people in that field are permitted to describe themselves. The result is a set of recommendations you can implement without creating a compliance problem for yourself.
Full feature lists for each track are on the What’s Included page.
I’m an engineer. What does my Blueprint cover?
Technical recruiters find candidates through keyword and boolean searches that candidates never see. When a profile doesn’t use the language those searches are built on, qualified engineers get filtered out before a human ever reviews them, and they have no way of knowing it happened.
The Engineers Blueprint is tuned for how technical recruiters and the AI tools they use read a profile. It covers stack and search-term optimization, guidance on how GitHub and portfolio links are interpreted, and positioning calibrated across engineering tracks, so that a backend engineer, a data scientist, and a platform specialist each read as what they actually are rather than as a generic technical profile.
I’m an attorney. How do you handle bar advertising rules?
Bar advertising rules and professional conduct standards govern what an attorney can say about their own practice. Generic profile advice ignores them entirely, which makes most optimization guidance risky for practicing lawyers.
The Attorneys Blueprint is drafted with those rules in mind. It includes bar-rule-aware language, a state-by-state review of the recommended profile copy, and the disclaimers a given jurisdiction expects, so AI systems can read your authority accurately while your profile stays defensible.
This is positioning guidance rather than legal advice. Final responsibility for compliance with your own bar’s rules rests with you, and we recommend reviewing any updated profile language against them before publishing.
I’m a CPA or accountant. How do you handle license and Circular 230 rules?
Accounting credentials carry rules that most profile tools ignore. License status, state board standards, and IRS Circular 230 all shape what a CPA, Enrolled Agent, or accountant is permitted to claim.
The Accountants & CPAs Blueprint respects each of them. It includes correct license-status wording, a state-by-state review of the recommended copy, and independence-aware language, so AI systems understand the depth of your expertise without putting your professional standing at risk.
This is positioning guidance rather than compliance advice. Final responsibility for meeting your state board’s standards and Circular 230 rests with you.
Can I buy a Blueprint as a gift?
Yes, for most paths. Gifting a Blueprint is a common choice for parents of graduating students and for anyone supporting someone through a job search.
There is one exception. The Attorneys Blueprint cannot be purchased as a gift. Bar advertising rules require the attorney to be the person reviewing and approving their own profile language, so that track has to be purchased by the attorney directly.
Lilypath is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by LinkedIn Corporation. Implementation of recommendations does not guarantee specific outcomes—individual results will vary.
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Your Comprehensive Blueprint delivers a scored diagnostic of your LinkedIn profile plus copy-ready rewrites —
grounded in how AI systems actually evaluate professional credibility.
