How to leverage AI in a changing earned media landscape.
AI: the elephant in the room that’s so large, there’s room for little else, but what does it actually mean for businesses and their PR? From LinkedIn to LBC, ‘experts’ are bandying about terms like anchor bias, peer-to-peer preference, and zero-click, but they can just further muddy the waters.
Put simply, the way people search for information has changed and companies are having to adapt. 20 years ago, a company’s reputation and visibility depended on print newspapers, for the past 10 years it relied on search engines, and now it is tied to Generative AI models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity – pick your poison. 67% of Gen Z and 53% of millennials turn to AI tools instead of Google when searching for information, and this is only expected to increase over time. Experts believe that AI will radically reform traditional search by 2028, and with its current growth rate, ChatGPT would catch up with Google in 4 years.
To maintain relevance and appreciation as industry leaders, companies now need to understand and improve their ability to be cited as sources for Large Language Models (LLMs) when clients/customers, prospects, and industry authorities ask relevant questions, otherwise known as Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO).
How? Glad you asked. Here are Rooster’s four insights that should inform your GEO strategy:
- Searchability: 96% of AI-generated citations originate from earned media coverage and other PR-driven content. For decades, Google prioritised keywords and backlinks for SEO, but these alone are no longer cutting it for GEO. Discovery now also depends on credibility, with AI tools valuing authentic content. Achieving coverage in reputable earned media sources are likely to help you to improve your GEO. However, one of the greatest changes between SEO and GEO is that YouTube is the top-cited domain in Google’s AI Mode, so now there is a clear opportunity for companies to incorporate YouTube into their PR and GEO strategy. The same goes for Substack, which is an online platform for writers and content creators to build a subscription-based business by publishing newsletters, podcasts, and videos. It has become more than a publishing platform; it’s an earned media engine. For communicators, landing on or partnering with a credible Substack can boost visibility, discoverability, and LLM-indexed influence. Bloomberg News has reported that Substack has more than 5M paid subscriptions as of 2025, with an overall reach figure in the tens of millions.Substack is free and seeable by LLMs so brands and organisations should look at Substack as a new place to pitch stories.
- Tracking: Nearly 60% of GenAI searches are zero-click, meaning the reader tends to be satisfied with the answer ChatGPT (for example) provides. While this means that many users are finding what they want via Gen AI tools, tracking what information people are reading is more difficult.Even if there are clicks, clicks alone aren’t a sign of success anymore. AI observes what happens after. If visitors quickly leave, it signals low-quality content, which can harm a search profile. This means that vague or misleading headlines confuse users and actually lower trust scores.It’s also important to keep in mind that the many different Gen AI products, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc, each have different sourcing methods so there may not be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy. How to track your visibility across the different channels remains an evergreen issue for PR.
- Enhanced Insights: As consumer behaviour has changed, it has also presented an opportunity for businesses to use AI to better track and predict it. AI-powered PR insights have enhanced media monitoring capabilities, allowing PR professionals to gain deeper and faster insights into brand perception and industry trends. AI can scan and analyse media coverage in real time as well as assess the sentiment of media mentions, meaning that it can understand public sentiment better than before. AI can also identify key influencers in the media, enabling more targeted outreach.PR professionals think that AI tools – from sentiment analysis to predictive modelling – improve both their research capabilities and strategic foresight. Over 60% believe that AI will benefit PR, and 36% already use AI for analytics or media research. Some of the benefits include:- Predictive intelligence which can proactively assess risk and mitigate crises before headlines break, turning reactive PR into strategic crisis prevention- The ability to detect sarcasm, cultural context and emotional nuanceGlobal real-time coverage from TikTok to podcasts AI monitors across languages, platforms and formats- These AI tools identify ‘what’ is happening but still struggle with the ‘why’, and what to do next, which is where the opportunity is for PRs.
- Disinformation: Unfortunately, with certain searches AI is drawn to peer-to-peer platforms with less accountability. For example, the 6th most Googled term in the world, Reddit, plays an oversized role in GenAI recommendations currently. This can lead to the widespread distribution of misinformation as these sources aren’t as vetted. ChatGPT is also 4 times more likely than Google to cite from low-quality, and therefore potentially less credible domains, which means reliability of the different Gen AI tools varies.AI can also present information as fact, so people don’t think to check it because its polished delivery creates false confidence in decision-making processes. People feel informed and confident when they may not actually have all the accurate or most up-to-date information they need. This leads to anchor bias, which is where people are more likely to think of AI results as fact, without using critical thinking to question sources or biases. This is especially alarming as the 5th annual Disinformation in Society Report showed that 34% of people trust AI for their news; a notable jump from 21% last year.
If you liked this article, be sure to look out for future content in our ongoing PR and AI blog series at Rooster.co.uk
