If you own the public relations budget at your company, there is a lot you can do today to influence AI search, and more broadly, to shape your brand’s discoverability. Coverage in trusted publications plays a large role in what AI engines “know” about your brand.
Rather than forcing you to reinvent your PR strategy, answer engine optimization (AEO)—a concept closely related to generative engine optimization (GEO)—focuses on augmenting and enhancing what you’re already doing. The answers ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity are serving up to users are trained on the content you already publish, including press releases, award announcements, bios and earned media coverage.
As a comms leader, you are poised to lead the charge to ensure your brand shows up accurately and authoritatively across both human and AI search.
Visibility is measurable
PR will always involve a degree of intuition, but using AEO data takes the guesswork out of deciding your next move. With insights into how your brand appears in AI-generated summaries and what sources they draw from, you can make evidence-based decisions about where to focus next. If your competitors are being cited and you aren’t, that’s not a mystery, it’s a signal. Understanding your current AI visibility gives you the evidence to refine messaging, shore up content gaps and align your communications strategy with the data, not assumptions. To put yourself in an empowered position, you need to know:
- What are our key audiences searching for in ChatGPT and other AI engines?
- Is our brand coming up in the results for those searches? What about our competitors?
- What is the sentiment?
- Are our key brand messages coming through?
- What are the sources ChatGPT and others draw from when providing answers?
- How can my work influence those sources?
For leaders managing year-end budgets, an AEO audit or readiness assessment is one of the smartest investments you can make. It benchmarks where your brand stands today and shows exactly how to influence the next generation of search.
Three ways to run PR programs through the lens of AEO
Focus on three core levers that AI engines weigh most heavily: earned authority, structured storytelling and consistency across channels.
1. Treat every press release as AI training data
Each announcement, whether a launch, award, or executive hire, is a data point in AI training sets. Award wins, in particular, are the kind of information AI models weigh heavily when determining authority because they are credible, third-party validations.
A release that’s well-structured and factual has an extended shelf life and helps AI cite your brand accurately.
- Write prompt-shaped headlines. Questions like “How can retailers reduce returns with predictive analytics?” map directly to how users query AI.
- Include short FAQs. Clear questions and answers in the body are machine-readable gold.
- Add deep backlinks. Link to pages that reflect expertise, not just the homepage.
- Use an AI-aware wire. Services like GlobeNewswire and PRNewswire now provide visibility analytics showing how releases appear in AI search results.
Each optimized release teaches AI what your brand stands for.
2. Build authority through earned media
Coverage from reputable outlets remains one of the strongest signals of credibility for AI models. A steady cadence of stories that are fact-based, clearly structured and cross-linked, tells both audiences and algorithms that your brand is a trusted authority.
Earned content also reinforces consistency. When your narrative, proof points and tone match across interviews, thought-leadership, and press materials, AI engines can recognize and reuse that language accurately. (Read how to craft your story for AI search.)
3. Reinforce the Narrative Across Owned, Social and Influencer Channels
AI engines scan websites, blogs, social bios, image descriptions and influencer content to form a picture of your brand. This is why integrated PR programs are so critical in the age of AEO. We need to treat every digital surface as part of one connected story.
We know that AI models heavily index publicly-crawlable platforms like YouTube, blogs and Reddit. As such, we use tactics like providing creators with AEO-friendly brand descriptions to use consistently in captions, scripts, and companion content. On Reddit, where authenticity drives influence, a word of caution: engage carefully. Offer access and legitimacy to active community members rather than overt promotion. (See how to harness Reddit for visibility in AI search.)
When your owned, social and influencer content reinforce the same facts, phrasing, and proof points, AI engines start to recognize your authority. That consistency forms lasting “credibility clusters” around your brand, which are signals that keep you visible after the news cycle ends. (Find tips for influencing AI search with integrated strategies.)
Turning data into direction
Once you know how your brand performs in AI search, the next step is iteration. By publishing structured, machine-friendly content on a regular cadence, you ensure your story stays current in the models’ memory loop. The advantage compounds over time. Every optimized press release, every consistent quote, every linked announcement adds another reference point to how AI describes your organization.
From PR strategy to AI strategy
For comms leaders, AEO represents a new layer of strategic influence. It rewards clarity, frequency, and factual storytelling. And it gives PR teams a measurable role in shaping how their organizations appear in the next era of search. At Orchestra, we believe the brands that win will be those that publish consistently, optimize intelligently, and think holistically about how their stories are found, cited and shared, everywhere discovery happens.
* * *
If you’re interested in hearing more about Orchestra’s comprehensive AEO program, which makes brands more visible, more credible, and more impactful in the AI-powered landscape, email AEO@orchestraco.com.
