4 Ways PR Teams Can Stay Visible with AI-search on the Rise

If you’re in PR, this is a new kind of gatekeeper. Visibility is no longer built on backlinks and keywords. It’s determined by trust and authority, the two things PR should already be winning at. 

That’s good news, but only if you get your technical ducks in a row and learn to game the AI/LLM landscape, making sure your work is seen, understood, and cited by AI systems. 

Here’s my two cents on exactly how to make that happen.

How AI-Powered Search Is Changing PR Strategy

I’ve seen PR teams do everything right: publish compelling stories, secure national coverage, get picked up by respected outlets, and still see traffic stall.

That’s not because the work is weak. It’s because the rules have changed.

Traditional search rewarded clicks. Generative AI rewards citations. And those citations come from whoever is most credible,  not from whoever publishes the most. In a recent large-scale analysis of AI-generated search responses, over 95% of cited links came from unpaid, non-promotional sources. Around 27% were journalistic outlets. Paid placements? Almost invisible.

Instead of sending people to your site, AI systems summarise your work and serve it directly on the results page. If you’re not part of that summary, your audience may never see your story, even if you’re sitting in the number one organic spot.

This changes the PR job description. The stories that get cited are the ones backed by reputable outlets, published in structured formats, and tagged with clean metadata. AI is scanning for signals of trust.

If you want to appear in AI-driven search, double down on earned media, publish in machine-readable formats, and treat credibility as your new ranking factor.

Will AI Replace PR Professionals?

The short answer is no. And the fact that this question keeps coming up tells me we’re still missing the bigger picture.

Yes, AI can draft a press release. It can summarise your story in a few seconds. But it can’t read a room. It can’t earn a journalist’s trust. It can’t weigh the risk of a quote in the middle of a crisis or adapt your message to land with the right nuance.

Those are human skills, and they’re the ones that matter most. AI might change the workflow, but the judgment, relationships, and strategic insight at the heart of PR are still uniquely yours. 

As I’ve said before: when traffic drops, it’s tempting to blame the message. But more often, it’s the method. AI is changing how stories are found, not whether they matter.

What PR Teams Can Do to Stay Visible in AI-Driven Search

In conversations with PR teams, we almost always end up at the same conclusion: The teams that come out on top are those who understand it’s not AI versus PR professionals, it’s AI with professionals. Here are four moves that matter right now:

1. Optimize for AI citations, not just rankings

For those of you only just getting your SEO playbook sorted, I’m sorry to report that it’s now time to think beyond SEO. AI doesn’t rank the way search engines do. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini don’t just look at keywords and rankings. They pull from content that’s clear, trustworthy and easy for machines to read - and they consistently prioritize citations from high-domain-authority outlets like Reuters, AP, and the Financial Times.

Think of it like this: if your content looks like a teenager's bedroom, AI won’t bother digging through it. But if everything’s labelled and neatly put away, you’ve got a much better shot at getting picked up.

To make that happen:

• Keep names, dates, and titles consistent and accurate.
   
• Include expert quotes and data from sources people trust.
   
• Publish (or get mentioned) on high-quality, reputable sites.
   
• Avoid PDFs or unstructured formats that AI can’t easily access.
   
• Use schema markup (here’s a handy guide for the unfamiliar) to tell AI exactly what your page is about.

It’s about being readable, reliable, and ready for machines.

2. Prioritise quality media relationships

This one shouldn’t be a struggle for most PR pros! The media relationships you invest in today will continue to shape how your brand is seen tomorrow, both by people and machines.

Think of trusted media relationships as your new SEO strategy. AI doesn’t care if you’re ranking #1, it cares who trusts you. And nothing says ‘trustworthy’ like a journalist choosing to put your name in print. 

Coverage from credible outlets is one of the strongest authority signals AI can detect. If your name appears in a respected publication, you’re positioning yourself as a source AI will return to in the future.

To do this:

• Target outlets that regularly shape conversations in your industry.
   
• Offer expert insights that add value to the journalist’s story.
   
• Stay consistent in how you position your brand and spokespeople.
   
• Track citations, quotes, and unlinked mentions, not just traffic.

This is how modern PR delivers long-term impact: meaningful coverage in places people (and algorithms) trust.

3. Become a thought leader

One thing I’ve noticed: the brands that consistently show up in AI summaries are the ones already shaping the conversation, not chasing it.

You rarely get cited by accident. AI tools are trained on the voices that are already embedded in high-quality sources and tend to favor content published within the last 12 months. When it’s done well, thought leadership creates a positive feedback loop. One quote becomes three. One byline turns into a pattern. And over time, your voice becomes one of the de facto experts that AI models rely on.

To stay top of mind:

• Share ideas early, don’t wait for perfect timing - you can always change your tune or refine your thinking!
   
• Respond to industry shifts with clarity.
   
• Make your experts accessible, media-ready and quotable. That means preparing everything in advance and having it easily available in your newsroom for when journalists need it.
   
• Anchor your POV in places AI respects, such as credible media, structured newsrooms, and trusted platforms.

The more consistently you’re cited in the right places, the harder it becomes for AI to ignore you.

4. Treat your newsroom like the asset it is

Your newsroom shouldn’t act as an archive; it’s your single most visible source of truth. And it’s often where AI decides whether you’re credible enough to cite.

An outdated, hard-to-navigate newsroom signals that you’re not paying attention. A clean, structured, regularly updated newsroom signals that you’re worth listening to.

That’s actually why we originally built Presspage: to turn newsrooms into a discoverable, trusted source. Structured publishing, built-in metadata, integrated media kits, and multilingual support all work together to help your content get found, even as AI search becomes the default.

Your checklist:

• Design your newsroom as a standalone destination, rather than an isolated subpage, no one can access (unless they’ve decided to take your footer with a magnifying glass…)
   
• Keep your media kits, logos, and key assets up to date and easy to access.
   
• Align content with the topics, language, and formats AI systems are most likely to surface.
   
• Regularly audit every page to ensure it reflects your brand now, not two years ago.
   
• Publish in machine-readable formats. AI will skip unstructured, paywalled, or PDF-only content.

Final thoughts

The visibility game has changed. Most PR content will never be seen, not because it’s bad, but because it’s invisible to the systems deciding what matters.

The good news is that PR’s core strengths, trust, relationships, and credibility, are exactly what AI values most. But you can’t rely on those strengths alone. You need the structure, strategy, and technical readiness to make sure your best work surfaces when it matters most.

At Presspage, we help comms teams stay visible by giving them the tools to publish smarter, distribute with purpose, and build the kind of authority AI listens to.

If you’re interested in more insights on how AI is reshaping the industry, check out my take on how PR teams can maintain trust here. It’s based on a discussion I had on a recent episode of the Onder Embargo podcast.