PR: AI Search Success’ Secret Sauce
As you’ve probably noticed, the evolution of online search, led by AI integration, is beginning to accelerate. AI Overviews launched in Google nearly six months ago. Perplexity continues to grow significantly (even as legal issues persist). OpenAI’s ChatGPT has eclipsed 1 billion users a month over the last year, and last week, the company unveiled SearchGPT.
Results from generative AI search combine both links and text, but in a vastly different interface than what traditional search provided just a year ago. Within AI-generated results, search engines present information that they determine to be the most relevant to the query – not necessarily the sources that may rank highest in organic search. These AI-powered search engines are trained to understand the context of a query, interpret nuances, and deliver highly relevant results.
That presents incredible opportunities and equally large challenges to anyone responsible for telling an organization’s story. That’s because this shift, which only seems to be in the first inning of a very long game, puts a premium on an organization’s communications initiatives – from earned media to owned content – as an even more critical part of SEO strategies. Consider a few key elements of PR.
Earned media
Securing placements in reputable publications has always been a priority, but never more than it is now. These stories, including roundups, guides, features and profiles, will be among the authoritative sources referenced by AI search, making them an even more powerful method to reach your audience. The results of roundups, guides, features and profiles not only will be these sources of truth – but to drive the most impact, pros must step back, think like their target audiences, and plan effective strategies and pitches that can yield high-quality placements.
Content strategies and development
This furthers the emphasis on creating original, authoritative, useful content, with a focus on quality over quantity. Since ChatGPT’s launch nearly two years ago, many brands have emphasized churning out content with the help of AI. But that content was developed by machines for machines – and the end user second. Inherently, this creates a sea of sameness that belies the originality and insight that makes you THE SOURCE and eminently more findable and attractive to search engines. Or to paraphrase one of my favorite authors, “You can’t be common … You have to be uncommon.”
Reputation management
For all of the above focus on production, this revolution further emphasizes PR’s role in protection of online reputation. That’s never been not true. But consider now that we have LLMs ingesting and learning these personas and baking them into the results that will be shared. Whether that’s Google or Facebook, Yelp or Glassdoor, Forbes or the NYT – perceptions aren’t just something people find, they will be something they’re fed. This reinforces reputation not as a passive endeavor but an active one.
All of this – however you’re developing communications – places a greater emphasis on business objectives, key themes and topics that reflect them, and staying attuned to the news, trends and conversations related to your brand. Most importantly, it emphasizes the need for a deep understanding of your audiences – who are they, what they want, and how they are going to search for it. As natural language processing algorithms expand, search behavior will continue to evolve. We no longer search for keywords (a very inhuman thing to begin with), but request information, vastly changing the words and phrases we use in written communications.
While the fundamental reason for online search remains the same, the way we search and the results we receive are evolving rapidly. PR pros must evolve with it, embracing strategies that are, ironically, even more human-centric in this machine-learning future.
Originally published in PR Week.
