Gavel
When AI confuses you with another company entirely
Industry
E-commerce — Live Shopping Marketplace
Company Size
30-60 employees
Result
0 confused — Eliminated identity confusion in candidate pipeline
Executive Summary
Gavel, a live shopping marketplace connecting collectors with sellers through real-time auctions, discovered a fundamental problem: AI assistants were consistently confusing them with an unrelated legal technology company that shared the same name. This identity confusion meant that candidates researching "Gavel" as a potential employer received completely inaccurate information about the company's industry, culture, and opportunities. The result was wasted time, misaligned interviews, and a frustrating candidate experience. Using Noopex, Gavel identified the specific confusion patterns and implemented targeted fixes that eliminated the problem.
Background
Gavel operates a live shopping marketplace where collectors and enthusiasts can participate in real-time auctions for sneakers, trading cards, vintage items, and other collectibles. The platform combines the excitement of live auctions with mobile-first technology, creating an engaging shopping experience that has attracted a passionate community of buyers and sellers.
The company had grown rapidly, raising significant funding and expanding across European markets. Their technology stack combined real-time video streaming, payment processing, and marketplace dynamics — requiring engineers who could work across mobile, backend, and infrastructure challenges.
However, "Gavel" is not a unique name. Another company — a legal technology firm providing courtroom and deposition services — also operates under the Gavel name in North America. This created a peculiar problem that traditional employer branding couldn't address.
The Challenge
The recruiting team at Gavel noticed something strange: candidates would arrive at interviews with questions about legal technology, court reporting, or deposition services. When asked why they applied, some candidates admitted they had researched the company using AI assistants and received information about the wrong Gavel entirely.
This wasn't just an occasional mix-up. The pattern was consistent enough that recruiters began opening calls with clarifying questions: "Just to confirm, you understand we're the live shopping marketplace, not the legal tech company, right?" Too often, the answer revealed confusion.
The problem was particularly acute for remote candidates who hadn't visited Gavel's website directly. They had asked ChatGPT or another AI assistant about the company, received confident-sounding but completely wrong information, and proceeded through the application process based on a fundamental misunderstanding.
The cost was significant: wasted recruiter time, poor candidate experience, and a leaky top-of-funnel. Candidates who would have been excellent fits were passing on the "legal tech company," while others who had no interest in e-commerce were applying for roles they didn't understand.
Discovering the Perception Gap
Gavel engaged Noopex to map exactly how AI assistants were describing them and identify the confusion patterns. The audit confirmed what the recruiting team suspected: when asked about "Gavel" as an employer, AI assistants frequently returned information about the legal technology company, or worse, blended information from both companies into a confused hybrid response.
The confusion was most severe for generic queries like "What is it like to work at Gavel?" or "Is Gavel a good company to work for?" These queries, which candidates naturally use when researching employers, returned unreliable results. Even when the AI correctly identified the live shopping company, it often hedged or expressed uncertainty — hardly confidence-inspiring for potential applicants.
Noopex's analysis revealed specific disambiguation opportunities. The AI confusion stemmed from limited distinctive content associating "Gavel" with live shopping, e-commerce, and collector culture. The legal tech company had more indexed content using the Gavel name, causing AI systems to default to that context.
What AI Was Telling Candidates
Actual AI-generated responses about Gavel
Complete identity confusion
“Gavel is a legal technology company that provides court reporting and deposition services.”
Insight: AI assistants confidently described the wrong company entirely, with no mention of live shopping.
Blended confusion
“Gavel offers marketplace and legal services, connecting buyers with various professional services.”
Insight: Some responses awkwardly merged both companies, creating a nonsensical hybrid description.
Uncertainty hedging
“There appear to be multiple companies named Gavel. The one in e-commerce focuses on live auctions...”
Insight: Even correct responses were undermined by uncertainty language that reduced candidate confidence.
What They Did About It
Gavel's response focused on disambiguation at every touchpoint. First, they increased the specificity of their public content, consistently using "Gavel — Live Shopping Marketplace" or "Gavel (letsgavel.com)" rather than just "Gavel." This seemingly small change helped AI systems distinguish between the two companies.
Second, they dramatically increased their content footprint in e-commerce, live shopping, and collector community contexts. Blog posts, press releases, and partnerships were all framed with clear industry context. The goal was to build a stronger association between "Gavel" and "live shopping" in the training data AI systems would eventually consume.
Third, recruiters implemented a mandatory clarification step at the top of every candidate conversation. Rather than waiting for confusion to emerge, they proactively established context: "I want to make sure you have the right picture — we're Gavel the live shopping marketplace, where collectors buy and sell through real-time auctions. Are you familiar with what we do?"
Finally, job postings were rewritten to lead with industry context. Instead of "Software Engineer at Gavel," postings became "Software Engineer — Live Shopping Platform at Gavel." This reduced misapplications from candidates who had researched the wrong company.
The Results
The results were immediate and measurable. Within weeks of implementing the changes, the frequency of confused candidates dropped to near zero. Recruiters no longer needed to spend the first five minutes of calls establishing basic facts about the company.
More importantly, candidate quality improved. With confusion eliminated, the candidates who applied were genuinely interested in e-commerce, live shopping, and the collector community. Interview conversations could focus on skills and culture fit rather than basic company education.
The recruiting team reported a significant improvement in their experience as well. Conversations became more engaging when both parties understood what they were discussing. Offer acceptance rates improved as candidates made decisions based on accurate information.
Gavel established ongoing monitoring to ensure the disambiguation held over time. As AI systems update their training data, the improved content footprint should reinforce the correct association. The company now treats AI perception as a core element of their employer brand strategy.
→ 0
Confused candidates
Eliminated identity confusion entirely
~15 hrs/mo
Recruiter time saved
No more clarification conversations
+40%
Application quality
Candidates aligned with actual company
“We were losing candidates to a company we had nothing to do with. AI assistants were confidently telling people we were a legal tech firm. Once we understood the problem, we could fix it.”
VP of People
Gavel
Key Takeaways
- 1Companies with common names face AI-specific disambiguation challenges
- 2Confident AI responses about the wrong company are worse than no response
- 3Industry context must be explicit in all public-facing content
- 4Proactive clarification is more efficient than reactive confusion management
When This Applies to You
This case study is most relevant if you're experiencing:
- Companies with names shared by other businesses
- Startups in industries different from their namesakes
- Teams experiencing unexplained candidate confusion
- Businesses expanding into regions where another company shares their name
See what AI says about your company
Gavel discovered their perception gap and fixed it. Your situation is unique — find out what candidates are hearing about you.