PR and Earned Media Powers AI Search
In our past article SEO and PR we discussed how Earned media is oftentimes an essential contributor to SEO strategies, and is directly impacting Google search results.
In that same post Cara Corbett from SUSO Digital briefly made the point that:
“Google’s new AI Overviews and other AI-powered search features are surfacing answers with citations from trusted sources. LLMs (like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini) frequently reference top-tier media outlets.”
Cara made the call early and has seemingly got it right. We asked ChatGPT this week exactly how it uses Earned media in its responses and we were told this:
“Earned media is useful for adding context, tracking public discourse, and identifying trends….it’s a complementary source, often used to enrich or illustrate a point….”
ChatGPT explained:
- “I try to balance perspectives and cite from multiple sources
- I prioritise facts that are corroborated by multiple, reliable sources
- I generally prefer peer-reviewed studies, government reports, or direct quotes when accuracy is crucial.”
PR is Impacting AI
If PR and earned media is impacting AI search results, what do you need to consider as an in-house PR and marketing manager?
Simon Schnieders, CEO and Founder of SEO agency, Blue Array, suggests tech companies need to look at the quality of their content to drive their Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO):
“AI systems seem to be deprioritising generic AI-generated content. They’re looking for high-quality, authoritative material—ideally content that reflects the lived human experience. It looks like unless AI content goes through strong human sub-editorial review, it’s unlikely to rank well.”
Simon also cautions against the assumption that being ranked well on Google gives you a shortcut to rank well in AI and vice versus. He says:
“What makes Google different is that it uses something called a query fan-out technique. This means it takes your original search and runs multiple related synthetic searches at the same time. Then, it combines the results to create a final answer for the user. You might not be ranked number one in regular search results—you could be way down at position 50—but if your content and earned media coverage is more relevant to what the AI is looking for in those extra searches, it might still get featured in the AI-generated response.”
Lived Experiences
Simon adds that: “AI seems to like the lived human experience. The results appear heavily weighted towards user generated content on sites such as Reddit. That needs to be an important part of your content strategy.
Reputation Management
Chris Bignell, CEO of The Jargon Group, our member agency for the UK, suggests clear, consistent company messaging is going to be more important than ever in an increasing AI-driven media landscape:
“In the past, PRs could ‘bury bad news’ by making a series of positive announcements so that Google’s news timeline replaces the older (bad) news with the newer (good) news, and relying on people only bothering to look at recent news rather than searching for a more rounded history of a company. Multiple companies I know have tried this method after going into administration or trying to recover from a scandal.
The problem is, in an AI world, that simply won’t work; because AI will serve up the complete picture – and companies won’t have control over which parts are deemed important. Ever since social media became a “thing” we’ve been constantly reminding companies that what they say and what they do need to be the same thing – just in case anyone with a smartphone records them shredding incriminatory documents or leaking sewage into rivers. As more people use AI summaries to generate relevant information, this just takes another giant stride in importance. Companies need to walk the talk – and that means having a clear, consistent and coherent message they can articulate and also deliver the promise on. Planning what you say and testing whether your promise holds up in operations has never been more critical.”
Simon agrees:
“With traditional SEO, you could often get away with certain things—for example, by boosting your backlink profile to paper over some reputation issues. But with today’s large language models, that doesn’t work as well anymore. Managing a company’s online reputation across multiple sources has become more important than ever.
As AI continues to reshape how search engines deliver information to users, the role of PR and earned media as part of a SEO and GEO strategy grows stronger. If you need help taking your PR efforts global, please do get in touch with the Collectivist network and signup to our newsletter.
