AI search is reshaping PR – Here’s what brands should be doing differently

AI is on the tip of everybody’s tongues lately. Somewhat elusive at first, I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how quickly it would become so central to our work and daily lives. 

In digital marketing, a shake-up was probably due. Aside from ongoing Google updates, nothing like AI has come along in recent years and completely flipped the industry on its head. 

Now, everyone is invested in cracking the code, making sense of the changes, and trying to understand how to optimise digital efforts for AI search. For PR, I’m not talking about how to use AI to write press releases, track media coverage, or speed up email responses. I’m talking about how to optimise brand visibility and recognition within LLM and AI search results, where the goal posts seem to constantly be moving, and at the same time, no one has a concrete rulebook. 

As a PR, the introduction of AI into my field has brought both challenges and inspiration. In this article, I’ll discuss just how much AI has reshaped PR, and what brands should be doing differently.

Old dogs can learn new tricks  

For a long time, the industry hasn’t had much of a shake up. SEOs and PRs have long operated in the same frameworks, whereas now, old dogs need to learn new tricks. 

AI is making us think in entirely new ways, and this shift goes beyond the traditional Google algorithm update. 

The introduction of AI signifies a core shift in how information is surfaced, where search is moving from solely indexing pages to synthesising answers. AI systems now ingest information and interpret context to form connotations to your brand. This means that as PRs, and the wider SEO workforce, we are operating in a completely new ecosystem. 

Entity building > link building

Have you ever had a client turn and say “oh thanks for securing us in dream publication X, but is it a link though??” Well now, those conversations are nearing their end. 

While traditional search engines like Google value links to your brand as indicators of trust and authority, AI models focus on understanding entities (brands, people, concepts) and the content consistently associated with them. For example, if your brand is consistently mentioned in connection to “low-cost skincare”, that is the concept that AI will associate you with.  

This means that consistency in media mentions and the content surrounding your brand, is more valuable in the eyes of AI, if not more so, than isolated backlinks. 

What matters now, is that you build consistent association with topics that matter to your brand, creating repetition across owned channels and trusted publications. By focusing on clear themes and consistent alignment, you can build authority, providing more in return than link acquisition. 

Data, data, data 

Data has always been a strong basis for successful digital PR campaigns, offering original and interesting insights to journalists and readers. But in the era of AI, data is no longer purely a source of inspiration, but instead a competitive advantage. 

AI systems value factual, structured, and citation-worthy information, where in an online environment over-saturated with content, unique and original data becomes intellectual property. 

Propriety data gives your brand something unique, extractable, and credible that AI systems can use in their answers. This will offer you a competitive advantage, keeping your content and campaigns at the top of the funnel, and strengthening visibility and long-term authority in AI-generated responses.

If a model can’t extract it in seconds, it won’t

While journalists may appreciate flourishing romantic prose, bots unfortunately don’t… 

Remember you’re no longer just pitching to journalists, you’re pitching to robots that scan for structured, reliable, and extractable information. And if that information isn’t extractable in seconds, it won’t be. 

If you’re working on a campaign with AI visibility in mind, your content should make it easy to find out who you are, what you’re known for, what you specialise in, why you’re credible, and your associated brand topics in less than 5 seconds. 

Listicles and editorial PR = +++

Before AI, securing brand features in listicles and media mentions was considered more of a “nice-to-have” than a “must-have”. They were great to bring you under the eyes of journalists and readers, offering great exposure and referral traffic, but now, they are critical to any AI-focused PR strategy. 

Comparison articles such as “The Top 10 Vegan Restaurants in London” or “The Best Hydrating Moisturisers for Dry Skin” are recognised by AI models as authoritative, and non-biased trust signals, helping to build your brand’s authority. 

Also their easily extractable formats lend themselves perfectly to AI-driven user queries such as “which is the best brand for X…” So not only are you making AI’s jobs easier, being included in this type of media coverage highly increases the likelihood of being cited in AI-generated answers.

PR determines and defines brand framing

For years now, PR to some has been seen as a support function to SEO, whereas in the AI era, it may just become the foundation of GEO search. The biggest fundamental change to PR in 2026, is that it’s no longer just about rankings, it’s about how we’re framing brands. 

The role of PR has become about ensuring brand content and descriptors are consistent across every owned and earned placement. It is about repeating the same strategic themes intentionally, defining and reinforcing the same core concepts around your brand’s output. 

However, as AI systems synthesise knowledge and information, older inconsistencies can resurface from previous years of coverage. This means that controversies and negative sentiment can resurface in AI answers, and PR is now responsible for shaping brand messaging and ensuring ongoing long-term narrative hygiene. 

AI is compressing the funnel

As a PR, one of the crucial things to remember when ideating and curating ongoing PR strategies, is that our marketing funnel is changing. AI now collapses brand awareness, brand comparison, and recommendation into one single interaction. 

Users are no longer browsing five websites to find a solution to their answers – they’re asking one singular question. 

This means that brands have just one opportunity to appear in that user’s answer. PR is no longer just about securing media coverage and driving discovery, it is about influencing the final synthesis. With fewer user touchpoints PR now influences the “final answer,” not just the discovery phase and the path to it.

In an era full of uncertainties, one thing I can say is that AI is not just a passing trend, or minor algorithm shift; it’s a fundamental change to how we will continue to operate and use being online. 

In this era, brands will not win by producing more content, or landing more media coverage, but by having a coordinated approach to being consistently and credibly talked about.  

As PRs we are now having to widen our thinking power and look beyond traditional methods in order to adapt to forward-thinking technologies such as AI. 

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