Hot Off the Press and Into the Prompt
The Pitch You Wrote Yesterday? AI Is Quoting It Today
PR is SO Back.
Comms teams everywhere are rejoicing in validation, popping champagne and saying “I told you so!” to all who doubted the power of a pitch.
Muck Rack’s recent Generative Pulse report shows that nearly 90% of AI citations come from earned media. Even more striking: for recent queries, almost half of all citations trace back to journalistic content.
Translation for anyone whose mom also doesn’t understand what we do in PR: when tools like ChatGPT or Claude serve up answers, they’re pulling from high-authority outlets (think The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or industry-specific publications) with strong credibility.
Recency is equally powerful. As Muck Rack’s senior director of data Matt Dzugan put it, “Journalism from the past 30 days is actually incredibly, incredibly important in determining these citations…the single most common day to have content be cited by an AI model is content that was published yesterday.”
So yes, timely coverage isn’t just shaping public perception anymore; it’s literally shaping the answers AI gives the world.
It’s almost as if legacy media outlets are viewed as credible third-party endorsements! 😉
What Does This Mean for Brands?
If your brand isn’t in the headlines, you risk being invisible when audiences turn to AI for answers.
It’s time to put the pedal to the metal and invest in earned media. PR is important now more than ever, because it’s the gateway to AI discoverability.
Hold strong to the PESO (paid, earned, shared and owned) model. Every piece matters, but earned is taking center stage. Together, they create an echo chamber that AI can’t ignore.
Invest in building relationships with journalists, lean into storytelling that has news value, and move fast when opportunities arise. Fresh coverage has a short half-life, but in that window, it can dramatically influence not only public opinion but the very information ecosystems AI is pulling from.
In other words, the press release you fought for yesterday could be shaping tomorrow’s AI-generated answers.
Putting it Into Play
We’re seeing this first-hand. Don’t believe us? Ask ChatGPT where to donate after foreign aid cuts and you’ll see AP, Vox, and Forbes in the answer (oh hi, The Life You Can Save). Ask it about Route 66 and AFAR’s story, right alongside Travel + Leisure, Lonely Planet, Brit + Co, and USA Today (we’re looking at you, New Mexico Tourism Department) comes back as a top source.
That’s the power of earned media: once you land the placement, it keeps working long after the headline runs.
We’ll keep tightening news hooks. We’ll double down on speed. We’ll make sure our clients voices are landing in the kind of outlets algorithms respect. The team will always keep pitching (and not to toot our own horn, but we’ll keep landing coverage!!!) because at the end of the day, AI doesn’t just read the news. It remembers it.
