This month, I thought I would share excerpts from my PR Patter podcast conversation with Annabelle Sacher, MediaVision, on AI and Digital PR.
How does one leverage digital PR to unlock AI search visibility?
As we move into 2026, it’s clear that AI search or GEO (generative engine optimization), needs to become a core focus. The search landscape is changing very quickly. LLMs (large language models) and AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini (Google) and Claude, are all altering the way people search online. Google search results have also changed. And while we don’t know what the final outcome of that will be in terms of the search landscape, we do know that it’s definitely where people are shifting. Consumer behavior is changing, too. So consumers are needing more and more information and are using AI platforms and LLM’S to get answers about products, brands, experiences, personal advice, you name it. As a result, we need to optimize not just for traditional search engines like Google, but also for LLMs, like ChatGPT. This means that earned media has risen to the top of grabbing the attention of these AI search tools.
Why are press mentions more effective than other online content in boosting SEO?
I think there’s a lot of debate in the industry about this. Most people in the SEO world have known for a very long time the impact that PR and, particularly, digital PR have on visibility in traditional search engines. So, we know that being either mentioned or linked all contribute to that kind of overarching visibility and SEO performance. Coverage on authoritative digital publications is a ranking signal for Google. So the (domain) authority that those publications have, and then those publications ultimately mentioning your brand or linking to your brand, the authority that those publications have is driven back to your brand’s website, which ultimately improves. But it might be more likely that the publications that you are being featured in are mentioned because they tend to have higher authority than most brands’ websites. Either way, it’s absolutely crucial that you are getting that PR coverage in order to surface in AI answers and ultimately drive discoverability.
Is digital PR a key element in how brands should develop AI search strategies and how and where should you start?
Digital PR absolutely is essential to AI search strategy. The higher the quality and volume of coverage and also the kind of continued recency of coverage that we can drive for them in top tier media online is absolutely key to brands.
Continuously surfacing in AI answers is really crucial as part of an AI search or GEO strategy so we do have to take into account more channels than we might have done previously. This is especially critical for brands that want to be seen as a go-to source within their industry (which most brands want to do).
The key takeaway is that we need to be focusing on (and yes, AI is a big part of this) meeting users where they are searching. Google is still the biggest one, but there are others that we now need to consider including AI.
