A crisis doesn’t wait for a press release. In today’s media environment, reputational risks can emerge, and escalate, long before traditional monitoring tools catch them. Communications teams that rely solely on historical reporting are often a step behind. The solution? Predictive crisis intelligence: spotting risks early, before they trend, so your team can act proactively. 

To truly transform your media analysis, it’s essential to understand how the media ecosystem has changed. AI-generated summaries, niche content creators, and synthetic media amplify narratives at speeds that outpace traditional verification. In 2026, narrative intelligence is becoming the “new crisis command center,” using AI to detect disinformation, deepfakes, and coordinated amplification before they harm brand reputation. Brands that monitor only mentions or sentiment risk missing the early signals that matter most. 

Predictive intelligence works by identifying patterns and anomalies before they hit mainstream coverage. A sudden uptick in social chatter around a sensitive topic, subtle shifts in stakeholder framing, or early circulation of misinformation are all potential precursors to a larger crisis. The advantage is clear: by the time these signals reach the headlines, the narrative may already be difficult to control. 

This proactive approach is reinforced by the rise of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). As AI becomes a default source of information for journalists, consumers, and creators, the brands cited most often by authoritative outlets are those that appear in AI-generated summaries. Communications teams can now use predictive insights not just to respond to risks, but to shape the narrative before AI and digital amplification decide it for them. 

Technology alone isn’t enough. Insights are only valuable when actionable. Predictive alerts must be tied to business priorities, and communications, risk, and executive teams need to collaborate so early warnings translate into strategic decisions. Scenario planning, informed by predictive data, allows teams to test messaging, engage stakeholders, and prevent reputational crises before they start. 

Predictive crisis intelligence allows communications leaders to move from reactive and to defensive to proactive. It enables teams to anticipate narratives, protect brand reputation, and maintain trust in an increasingly complex media environment. 

At PublicRelay, we provide communications leaders with AI-driven media analysis that surfaces risks before they trend. If you’re ready to move beyond just monitoring, connect with us to see how predictive insights can work for your team. 

Corporate communications leaders are navigating a moment of rapid change. From AI to reputation strategy to the evolving role of earned media, the conversations at this year’s Corporate Communications & Brand Summit made one thing clear: the function is being asked to prove its value in new ways. 

I spent the day listening in on panels, audience Q&A sessions, and networking with communications leaders across industries. The most heavily attended discussions tended to revolve around three themes: the growing importance of reputation, the real role of AI in communications, and the challenge of understanding influence in a fragmented information environment. 

Here are a few of the ideas that stuck with me. 

Belief, purpose, and the role of communication 

One theme that came up repeatedly was the idea that communication shapes belief. One speaker shared a simple but powerful example from inside their organization. Their CEO addressed employees and framed the company’s evolution not by saying what the company was becoming, but by clearly stating what it was no longer. That clarity helped employees understand the direction of the business and created alignment around a shared “North Star” purpose. 

Messaging is no longer just about storytelling; it helps define a brand’s identity. When leaders articulate purpose and values with clarity, communications becomes a mechanism for building belief internally and externally. 

Reputation is still the license to operate 

Another widely attended session featured Sarah Scruggs Brandt from American Chemistry Council, who put reputation in stark terms: “Reputation is our license to operate.” 

For industries that face skepticism or misunderstanding, reputation management is not just a brand exercise; it is fundamental to business viability. She referenced the well-known Warren Buffett quote that “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it”; a saying that reflects the reality many communications teams face today. 

Brandt also highlighted how misinformation continues to shape public perception of entire industries and that because of this, communications teams play a critical role in educating stakeholders and ensuring that accurate information reaches the right audiences. 

In other words, reputation is not something that can be managed passively. It requires constant attention, monitoring, and proactive engagement. 

Earned media is gaining ground again 

Another interesting discussion focused on the relative effectiveness of paid versus earned media. Several speakers suggested that paid media is becoming less effective at influencing audiences in the way it once did. Instead, earned media and credible third-party voices are regaining importance. 

For communications teams, this reinforces the value of building strong media relationships and understanding where credibility actually lives. Audiences increasingly trust independent voices over brand generated messages. 

This shift is also forcing teams to think more deeply about stakeholder mapping. One audience member asked about identifying the most influential voices in a rapidly changing information ecosystem. The response highlighted a real challenge facing the industry: influence changes quickly, and communications teams are still learning how to track it. 

With large language models and AI powered search changing how information is surfaced, many teams are still experimenting with how to identify which sources and voices matter most. The consensus seemed to be that strategies will evolve as AI platforms mature, and the ecosystem stabilizes. 

AI is everywhere, but humans still matter 

Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence was one of the most popular topics throughout the event. Bill Walsh from AARP shared a particularly practical perspective on how his communications teams are actually using AI today. 

He noted that one of the most effective ways to convince leadership to invest in AI tools was simply to show them real outputs. Demonstrating what AI could produce helped move the conversation from theory to action. 

The overall message was not that AI replaces communicators, in fact, the opposite came through clearly. Every speaker emphasized the need for a human in the loop. 

AI tools are great for assisting with tasks like copy editing, content drafting, or scanning large volumes of information. Some teams are even using AI to personalize digital newsletters for specific audience segments. 

While AI tools certainly have their place in today’s workflow, strategy, judgment, and context still belong firmly in the hands of communications professionals. 

The communications function is evolving 

Stepping back from the individual sessions, the bigger picture was clear. The role of corporate communications continues to expand. 

Communications leaders are now expected to shape corporate purpose, manage reputation risk, interpret complex information environments, and guide organizations through emerging technologies like AI. 

The conversations at this year’s summit certainly reflected that shift. The most impactful sessions were not about tactics alone. They focused on influence, credibility, and how communications leaders can translate reputation into tangible business value. 

For communications leaders, the takeaway is simple: the function is not just supporting the business anymore; it is helping define it. 

With communications shaping strategy at every level, knowing how to measure and navigate reputation and influence is more important than ever. Let’s continue the conversation.

This post was written by Darren Sleeger, SVP of Strategic Partnerships at PublicRelay and attendee of TCB’s Corporate Communications & Brand Summit.

April 16th | 6:00pm ET | Washington, D.C.

In today’s high-stakes corporate environment, communications and marketing leaders are expected to do far more than manage messages. They’re asked to build trust, protect reputation, shape decisions, and drive growth. Yet their work is still too often measured by outputs, not enterprise impact.

Sukhi Sahni, Strategic Advisor, Educator, and Futurist (former senior executive at Wells Fargo, Capital One, and Sprint Nextel) will lead an intimate dinner conversation on how leaders can prove real enterprise value and future-proof the function. This is not a session about tactics. It’s a candid discussion about what’s working, what isn’t and what must change.

Over dinner, we’ll explore five critical questions:

• Measuring What Matters: Are our metrics capturing real influence or just easy-to-track outputs?
• Reputation as Strategy: Is communications and marketing positioned as a safety net or a growth-driving engine?
• Trust & Influence Reality Check: How much weight does our voice carry in high-pressure moments, and are we addressing root causes or optics?
• AI and the Future of Narrative: As AI accelerates content cycles and misinformation, what capabilities must we develop and how do we build our teams to manage reputational risk at scale?
• Redefining Value: What does it take to measure enterprise-critical assets like trust, cultural credibility, and strategic decision impact?

You will leave with a sharper perspective on how to assert influence, measure what matters, and position your function as indispensable.

If your budget were cut tomorrow, what would the business miss most?
And five years from now, will we lead strategy or support it?

If that question stays with you, join us.

We welcome CCOs, VPs, and Directors of Communications to request an invitation to join this roundtable discussion.

Upon qualification, you will receive a follow up email from a member of our team confirming your participation.

April 28th | 8:00am ET | Charlotte, NC

Reputation is no longer shaped solely by journalists, analysts, or official brand statements. Increasingly, it is formed by AI-generated summaries, creator-driven narratives, and synthetic content that can move faster than traditional verification cycles. The communications playbook still matters, but it is no longer sufficient on its own.

In this roundtable led by Colleen Penhall, Founder & Principal Advisor of Strategic Communications at TrueNorth, we will explore how reputation management is evolving in the AI era and what communications leaders must build now to stay ahead. The conversation will examine three accelerating shifts: AI as an intermediary of brand narrative, influencers as independent media ecosystems, and synthetic media as a new category of reputational risk.

Together, we will explore questions such as:

• If someone relied solely on AI-generated answers to understand your company or industry, what story would they walk away with, and is it the one you intend to tell?
• As AI-driven discovery reshapes visibility, which function is best positioned to lead the strategy and ensure consistent narrative control across the enterprise?
• When reputational pressure comes from a creator with a loyal audience rather than from traditional media, how does that shift your response and escalation approach?
• If multiple forces, from AI summaries to influencer commentary to manipulated media, amplified the same negative storyline, how resilient would your reputation strategy be?

Designed for senior communications leaders, this session offers a candid forum to compare approaches, pressure-test assumptions, and identify the capabilities that will define effective reputation stewardship over the next 12 to 18 months, from AI literacy and monitoring to creator engagement and misinformation response.

We welcome CCOs, VPs, and Directors of Communications to request an invitation to join this roundtable discussion.

Upon qualification, you will receive a follow up email from a member of our team confirming your participation.

April 29th | 12:00pm ET | Virtual

AI-powered discovery is changing how people find, evaluate, and trust brands. For communications leaders, that shift creates a new strategic imperative: visibility is no longer just about publishing content or securing coverage. It is about engineering a system in which owned and earned media work together to build authority, reinforce credibility, and increase discoverability wherever decisions are being made.

In this virtual roundtable hosted by Gini Dietrich, founder of Spin Sucks and creator of the PESO Model®, communications leaders will discuss how the role of owned and earned media is evolving in an AI-driven landscape—and what that means for strategy, structure, and measurement. Rather than treating owned and earned as separate efforts, the conversation will explore how they can function as a coordinated proof loop: owned media as the source of depth and clarity, and earned media as the signal of trust and validation.

Together, participants will examine how leading teams are rethinking visibility, what kinds of content and credibility signals matter most in AI-influenced discovery, how cross-functional collaboration needs to evolve, and what new measures of authority are beginning to matter.

• How is AI changing the way your organization builds authority, not just awareness?
• Where should owned media play a stronger role as a source of proof, clarity, and depth?
• How can earned media better validate and extend the stories your organization most needs to be known for?
• What does a strong owned-earned proof loop look like in practice?
• What signals, metrics, or indicators actually help you understand visibility and trust in an AI-shaped environment?
• How do comms teams need to evolve their workflows, skills, and partnerships to lead this shift?

Attendees will leave with a clearer view of how communications teams are adapting to AI-shaped discovery, where owned and earned media each create strategic value, and how to build a more deliberate visibility system across both. The roundtable is designed to surface practical perspectives, challenge outdated assumptions, and help leaders identify what needs to change inside their own organizations next.

We welcome CCOs, VPs, and Directors of Communications to request an invitation to join this roundtable discussion.

Upon qualification, you will receive a follow up email from a member of our team confirming your participation.

March 31st | 8:00am CT | Dallas, TX

As AI reshapes workflows, stakeholder expectations rise, and boards demand sharper strategic alignment, communications leaders are being asked to operate well beyond traditional competencies. The question is not just how to keep up, it’s whether you are building the skills and perspective required to step into the CCO seat.

In this roundtable hosted by Linda Rutherford, Executive Advisor and former Chief Administration & Communications Officer at Southwest Airlines, we’ll explore what organizations are truly looking for in a future CCO. Discussion will explore questions such as:

• How is AI changing team structures, talent models, and upskilling priorities?
• What is your CEO asking you to focus on, and what does that signal about your growth trajectory?
• Which capabilities matter most beyond core communications expertise, from business acumen to cross-functional collaboration and influence?
• What is your board of directors demanding in today’s environment, and how can communications rise to meet those expectations?
• How are you closing experience gaps through exposure to government affairs, public affairs, marketing, and broader enterprise strategy?
• What soft skills are needed to project competence and confidence and be seen as potential bench for executive level comms roles?

Designed for rising communications leaders, this session offers space to reflect, share challenges, and gain perspective on how to intentionally build toward the next level of influence.

We welcome CCOs, VPs, and Directors of Communications to request an invitation to join this roundtable discussion.

Upon qualification, you will receive a follow up email from a member of our team confirming your participation.

Communications teams have the incredible responsibility of managing their company reputation across all forms of media. What may appear to be a simple task spans a seemingly infinite number of online outlets, print publications, and social sites with constantly changing discussions.

Not only that, but conversations around your brand can move at algorithmic speed, making it difficult to decipher how your brand is represented and, more importantly, how that representation is shaped by sophisticated machine interpretation. In 2026, reputation management must account for not just what is said, but how it is synthesized, summarized, and surfaced by AI systems before audiences have even seen the original coverage. 

What is Reputation Management?

Reputation management is the act of influencing or controlling public perceptions of a company. Managing your reputation is both active and reactive and is shaped by three types of coverage: earned, paid, and owned media. Paid media relates to advertising, earned media encompasses traditional media coverage and social discussions, and owned media refers to content published by your organization, like your company website, blog, and social media.

What Does Reputation Management Look Like in 2026?

With the increasing shift toward digital media and artificial intelligence, the practice now requires consideration of traditional, online, broadcast, social, and AI-influenced discovery platforms. 

Managing your reputation is both active and reactive, shaped by three types of media: 

• Paid media, which includes advertising and sponsored content. 

• Earned media, encompassing traditional media coverage, online publications, and social discussion. 

• Owned media, referring to content published by your organization, like your website, blog, executive content, and social channels. 

In the AI era, these elements work together in new ways. A piece of earned media may end up summarized in generative AI results; your owned content may be interpreted and surfaced by AI assistants in ways that affect brand perception before a human even sees it.

Why is Reputation Management Important?

In an era when consumers are more informed and skeptical than ever, and younger generations control more purchasing power and influence, staying visible and relevant is crucial. 

But the rules of visibility have changed. In 2026, many people no longer discover brands through traditional search alone; AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and other generative systems summarize information and recommendations in ways that can define your brand before a user ever clicks through.

Because AI systems synthesize and summarize content, any inaccuracies, outdated information, or negative narratives seeded in older content can be amplified. Reputation isn’t just what people read; it’s what machines tell people about your brand. That makes it vital to manage not just the content itself, but how it is interpreted by algorithmic models that power discovery and decision-making.

The factors influencing brand perception now extend far beyond the scope of typical business operations. They include corporate governance, social and environmental responsibility, executive credibility, and now, AI visibility and generative search narratives. Investing in reputation management ensures that your company is represented favorably not only by traditional media but also in the AI-powered experiences that increasingly shape stakeholder views.

Steps to Build a Reputation Management Strategy

Building a reputation management strategy begins with identifying your reputational drivers, the key aspects that construct your brand’s identity. After determining the topics that drive your brand’s coverage, implement a data-based strategy to track your key messages and understand how AI systems are interpreting them. Monitoring competitor coverage can also help your team anticipate trends and develop internal strategies for AI-era crisis response. 

Identify Your Reputational Drivers

Start by identifying the key factors that drive your company’s reputation. At PublicRelay, we have developed a framework of seven essential reputation drivers that can be applied or adapted to any company: products and services, business strategy, workplace, leadership, corporate social responsibility, financial performance, and government relations.

These drivers work together to help paint a cohesive picture of public perception and should be tailored to represent your company and industry. In the age of AI, reputational drivers should also account for how your organization is represented in machine-generated contexts, not just in human-read narratives. For example, leadership credibility now includes how AI systems portray executives when answering queries about your organization.

Your team may not yet know the full breadth of the drivers that comprise your corporate reputation in this AI era. Tracking key industry competitors and monitoring how narratives about them show up in generative search results are excellent ways to understand the reputational drivers of both competitors and larger organizations. 

Monitor Your Coverage Using Real-Time Data Analytics

One of the most effective methods for ensuring that your messaging and earned media are consistent with your reputational goals is using real-time analytics. Tracking the volume, tone, and sharing of media output that mentions your company can help you determine how often your key messages are discussed, the sentiment surrounding them, and how readers engage with your coverage.

With AI-powered results now influencing discovery and perception, it’s critical to monitor not only traditional media and social platforms but also how your content and third-party mentions are being synthesized by generative search tools. A narrative that appears neutral in raw coverage could be framed negatively when interpreted by AI models.

Real-time analytics allow your team to pivot and adapt messaging in response to public interests, political activity, and global events. However, it’s important to balance automated sentiment analysis with human context and oversight, as AI interpretation can misread nuance or cultural context without careful configuration.

Develop Data-Based Strategies for Crises That Threaten Reputation

Tracking your company messages and those of your peers can also help shape your approach to crisis communications. When negative publicity threatens your brand’s reputation, you can use data from the experiences of competitors faced with similar crises in the past to inform your response. Whether the move is to remain quiet as coverage passes or issue a carefully worded statement, competitive tracking can give you the foresight to deftly maneuver potential challenges.

Identify the Threats Worth Addressing

Negative articles about your brand will inevitably be published from time to time, but not all bad press is worth addressing. Coverage may warrant a response if published by a high-reach outlet or if it garners significant social sharing, as both factors can snowball into additional mentions or amplified AI interpretation. 

Social engagement is especially important, as sharing spreads articles across websites and increases the chance that those narratives will be pulled into AI models’ training data or responses. Predictive analytics can help your team spot topics with high potential virality before they surge, allowing you to prioritize interventions. 

Start Managing Your Reputation Today

Reputation management is one of the greatest responsibilities of PR and communications teams. While paid and owned media are internally controlled, earned media now interacts with AI-driven systems that shape how your organization is understood. A strong reputation strategy in the AI era combines traditional media monitoring with AI-aware analytics, narrative intelligence, and real-time insight. 

With AI tools evolving quickly, communications teams must track how their brand is portrayed across every channel and how generative systems interpret that narrative. Predictive alerts and generative engine optimization (GEO) enable teams to spot risk days or weeks before issues become visible to broader audiences. 

To learn more about how PublicRelay can help manage your reputation in the AI era, click here. 

In today’s always-on media environment, reputation is no longer shaped by a handful of headline moments. It is continuously formed, and reformed, by thousands of stories, posts, and perspectives across traditional and social media. For communications leaders, the challenge is no longer whether reputation matters, but how to measure it in a way that drives smarter decisions and tangible business outcomes.

This is where the next frontier of reputation measurement begins.

From Media Monitoring to Media Reputation

Media reputation is a brand’s standing in the media, driven by both the visibility and significance of coverage and the impact that coverage has on brand credibility. Crucially, recent stories and the perspectives of key stakeholders—employees, investors, policymakers, healthcare providers, customers, the media, and consumers—play an outsized role in shaping that reputation.

Traditional media monitoring tools tell you what was said. But they rarely explain what actually matters. Volume, impressions, and basic sentiment fail to capture how specific stories, outlets, authors, and topics meaningfully influence how a brand is perceived right now, and where that perception is heading next.

Introducing the Media Reputation Score

PublicRelay’s Media Reputation Score is designed to close that gap. It is a proprietary, data-driven metric that quantifies a brand’s media reputation, so communications teams can improve execution and actively influence reputation outcomes.

By leveraging GenAI alongside the expertise of experienced analysts, PublicRelay ingests, enriches, segments, and analyzes millions of traditional and social media articles and posts. This approach surfaces emerging narratives and evaluates their sizing, velocity, and impact at scale and with precision.

The result? Agile insights that moves beyond dashboards and into decision.

What the Media Reputation Score Enables

At its core, the Media Reputation Score provides clarity in complexity. It translates sprawling media ecosystems into insights leaders can act on. Key capabilities include:

• Performance Measurement: A clear, high-level snapshot of current reputation, grounding executive conversations around risk, opportunity, and performance.

• Reputational Driver Analysis: Identification of the specific stories, topics, outlets, and authors that are disproportionately shifting reputation, positively or negatively.

• Stakeholder Opportunity and Risk Identification: A focused view into how different stakeholder groups currently perceive the brand and how those perceptions are changing over time.
• Benchmarking (Peer, Industry, and Aspirational): Contextual understanding of how your reputation compares to competitors and the broader sector, separating company-specific issues from industry-wide dynamics.

• Campaign ROI Calculator: Insight into how campaigns, announcements, or issues moved reputation and what the score would have been without them.

• Tie to Business Outcome Data: Connecting media reputation to broader business objectives, enabling communications to demonstrate strategic value.

Answering the Questions Leaders Actually Ask

What makes the Media Reputation Score especially powerful is how it aligns to real-world leadership questions like:

• What does our current reputation suggest about how we are perceived right now?

• Which stories or outlets are driving week-by-week shifts in perception?

• Which journalists truly influence how we are viewed by investors or policymakers?

• How is sentiment evolving over time and what does that signal about our trajectory?

• Are we closing the reputational gap with peers, or falling behind?

By isolating the stories, authors, outlets, and topics that matter most, communications teams can move from reactive reporting to proactive reputation management.

Why This Matters Now

As scrutiny intensifies and stakeholder expectations rise, reputation risk and opportunity are accelerating. Leaders need more than anecdotal evidence or lagging indicators; they need a forward-looking, defensible way to understand how media is shaping credibility and trust in real time.

The Media Reputation Score represents a shift from measuring noise to measuring impact. It empowers communications leaders to explain why reputation is moving, what is driving it, and how to influence it next.

The Future of Reputation Measurement

The next frontier of reputation measurement isn’t about more data; it’s about better answers. With agile insights at scale, grounded in both advanced AI and human expertise, the Media Reputation Score gives organizations a clearer line of sight between media coverage and reputation outcomes.

For communications leaders tasked with protecting and building trust, that clarity isn’t just valuable; it’s essential.

Want to learn more about the Media Reputation Score? Contact us to learn more.

By Alyson Atwell, Director of Marketing, PublicRelay

As geopolitical uncertainty and rapid technological change continue to reshape the landscape, communications leaders are being called on to do more than ever before. Chief Communications Officers are increasingly being seen as protectors of their brand and reputation and are earning a bigger seat at the executive table as a result.

Recent industry polling shows many leaders expect their communications and PR budgets to grow next year, but with that comes heightened scrutiny and pressure to prove value. Whether your budget is expanding or tightening, vanity metrics alone will no longer suffice. To make the most of your budget in 2026, communications leaders must rethink how they measure and demonstrate their impact.  

So, what should leaders prioritize in 2026? Here are five key areas to consider during your planning: 

1. Anchor Communications Strategy to Business Objectives

The most effective communications strategies start with business alignment. Leaders should clearly tie PR and communications efforts to organizational priorities such as growth, risk mitigation, regulatory readiness, or brand differentiation. When the function is framed as a driver of business outcomes, not just visibility, it becomes easier to justify investment and defend budgets at the executive level.

2. Embrace Budget Fluidity and Scenario Planning

2026 will demand more flexibility than ever before. Rigid annual budgets are giving way to more fluid models that allow teams to reallocate spend as risks, opportunities, and narratives shift. Communications leaders should plan for multiple scenarios and ensure they can quickly pivot resources toward crisis management, executive visibility, or emerging platforms as needed.

3. Build Business and Data Fluency Across the Function

With greater influence comes greater expectation. Communications leaders must speak the language of the business, using data to explain not just what happened, but why it matters. This includes moving beyond volume-based metrics to insights around audience reach, message penetration, sentiment, and reputational risk, data that resonates with CFOs and CEOs alike.

4. Prepare for AI Search and the Rise of GEO

As AI-driven search and generative engine optimization (GEO) reshape how information is discovered, earned media is becoming even more critical. Credible third-party coverage plays a growing role in how brands show up in AI-generated results, making strategic PR investment essential for long-term visibility and trust.

5. Invest in Reputation and Brand Resilience

In an era of constant scrutiny, reputation management is no longer reactive; it’s foundational. Leaders should use data to identify gaps in audience reach, understand where narratives are forming, and proactively build brand credibility before issues arise.

Driving Real Value in the Year Ahead

As communications leaders head into 2026, the mandate is clear: budgets may be growing, but expectations are growing faster. Increased influence and visibility bring an opportunity to redefine how communications proves its value. By tying strategy to business outcomes, remaining flexible, and investing in smarter measurement, leaders can position themselves to guide their organizations through uncertainty.  

At PublicRelay, we help communications teams turn data into actionable insights that demonstrate real impact. Contact us to learn more.

By Alyson Atwell, Director of Marketing, PublicRelay

In our last post, we covered why Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is a long game: AI assistants are answering questions directly, zero-click behavior is surging (nearly 60% of searches now end without a click!), and PR is finally pulling its weight in search rankings.

Now the question is: What do you actually do about it?

The job is no longer just “drive every query to our site.” It’s to map where answers are coming from and ensure your brand shows up in those “source-of-truth” nodes. Here is a practical, comms-led strategy to stop yelling into the void and start becoming the answer.

1. Start with Intent, Not Channels

Before you debate “Press Release vs. Blog,” ask: What questions must we answer, and where are those answers living today?

We generally see two big intent patterns:

• “What is the best…?” queries: These lean on social proof. AI cites reviews, forums, and communities like Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn, and G2.
• “What does this company do?” queries: These lean on authority. AI looks for clear corporate sites, “Top Platforms” lists, and high-authority media.

The Play: Don’t just chase the biggest logo. Target the ecosystem the AI trusts for your specific topic. Interestingly, don’t sleep on press releases. Studies show wires and business media frequently appear in AI citations. Treat them as “source-of-truth nodes” rather than just vanity metrics. A boring, well-structured explainer in a trusted mid-tier outlet is often more valuable for GEO than a flashy, hype-heavy interview.

2. Turn Your Content into “Citation Bait”

AI models love structure. They want evidence, not marketing fluff. You need to treat your comms assets—from press releases to executive quotes—as structured evidence.

Format for the Machine:

• Be Answer-First: Lead with a direct 1–3 sentence answer, then follow with context and example.
• Use Q&A Blocks: Literally write “Q: What is [Category]? A: [Definition]” in your releases and product pages. It makes it easy for bots to lift discrete answers.
• Chunk It: Keep sections to 200–300 words with descriptive subheads like “Why this matters for CISOs”. Models don’t read linearly; they scan for specific intents.

Optimize Your Evidence:

• Scope Your Quotes: Avoid generic praise. Use specific structures: “In 2025, [problem] costs [segment] roughly [impact]”.
• Explicit Data: Make sources linkable and clear (“According to [Firm] 2025 report…”) so the AI can verify the stat.

3. Exploit the “Freshness” Gaps

The biggest domains capture a huge share of citations, but they can’t cover everything. This is your opportunity. Models struggle with emerging topics and niche regulatory nuances.

The Play:

• Find the Gap: Use GEO tools or manual testing to see where current AI answers are thin, generic, or outdated.
• Refresh Aggressively: Brands with steady updates outperform sporadic spikes. Review your core “What we do” pages and explainers quarterly.
• Make Freshness Visible: Add “Last updated: [Month Year]” to key assets and pitch “New 2026 data” to show models you are the current authority.

4. Unify Your Team Around an Intent Map

Orchestration is hard because everyone sits in different silos (Web, Comms, Social), but the questions you need to answer and the outcomes are shared across teams.

Instead of assigning responsibility by channel, build a Shared GEO Intent Map:

1. Identify the 20–30 questions that matter most to your revenue or risk (e.g., “Is [Brand] good at [use case]?”)
2. Audit where you stand today: visible, weak, or nonexistent?
3. Assign levers:

• Comms: Secure quotes and data in AI-trusted outlets.
• Content: Write the deep-dive playbooks and “citation bait”
• Web: Handle the schema, FAQs, and site structure
• Social: Seed the answers in Reddit/LinkedIn threads where the AI looks for consensus

You can download our free GEO Intent Map Template here.

5. Quick Wins to Start Now

You can’t capture all the mindshare overnight, but you can start feeding better evidence into the models immediately. Here is your checklist for the next quarter:

• Rewrite Core Pages: Update 2-3 key product pages and your media kit to be “answer-first”.
• Add FAQ Sections: Put Q&A blocks in every new press release and thought leadership piece.
• Run a GEO Campaign: Focus one PR push specifically on outlets that appear in AI citations for your category.
• Start Tracking: Pilot a simple manual review or use a tool to track your visibility on priority questions.

GEO isn’t a new channel; it’s the infrastructure underneath all your channels. By balancing these quick structural wins with a long-term commitment to authority, you ensure that when the world asks about your category, you are the answer.

By Brendon O’Donovan, SVP of Product Solutions and Innovation, PublicRelay