Marketing, PR, earned media and the risks of an AI search gold rush

Jon Clements – Metamorphic PR

Now it’s official that achieving earned media in credible publications is part of the gold standard for citation in AI search answers, could this be both the best and worst thing that happens to public relations (PR)?

When AI large language models (LLMs) become the go-to places for businesses to seek answers to commercial questions, this could unleash simultaneously a new gold rush and unintended consequences for companies, their marketers and PR/communications teams and agencies.

The world’s largest PR agency, Edelman, published an article in the distant past – well, May 2025 – entitled How brands can stay visible in an AI-driven search world.

So fast-moving is the AI world, its conclusions – less than a year on – sound almost quaint:

Three critical principles, it said, are having an “early-mover advantage” to capitalise on the “huge whitespace opportunity” resembling “the early days of SEO or social media”; mounting a “team effort” to shape “desired brand perceptions that elevate trust and amplify strategic business objectives” and acknowledging that “earned media is the single most important driver of brand visibility in AI-generated responses”.

Now, if that didn’t fire the starting pistol for an earned media goldrush, I don’t know what would.

The wild west of early SEO – a cautionary tale

But there are lessons from the so-called early days of SEO which offer a word to the wise today:

SEO “black hat” techniques such as “keyword stuffing” to manipulate website ranking in search were possible because companies controlled their own sites and it took time for Google to introduce a sequence of updates to address low quality content and skewed search results. However, for a period known as “the Wild West”, SEO practices were able to game the system, resulting in the forerunner of “AI slop” and search rankings that often didn’t reflect genuine authority or quality of insight for searchers.

The history is instructive, because “early movers” wanting to exploit generative engines’ “huge whitespace opportunity” with earned media will find a wholly different set of challenges.

Unlike the early SEO ability for website owners to mess with meta tags and farm backlinks to buy search engine prominence, earned media rubs up against an irresistible force: journalists – reporters and editors.

Taking a grown-up approach to earned media

In the sometimes-adversarial relationship between PR professionals and journalists, a set of ethics has emerged over time which govern – in most cases – the validity and veracity of material that’s disseminated by organisations and what ends up being published.

Basically, if you put out crap content to the media, it ends up “on the spike” (a.k.a., rejected) rather than in the publication and – if repeated regularly – soils the reputation of a company and its communicators.

Equally, for PR people and the companies they represent, having a working relationship – or even friendship – with a journalist is not automatically a “huge whitespace opportunity” for your media output. And quite right too: the principal benefit in obtaining media coverage in bona fide media outlets is gained by your material passing through the journalistic filter and being treated, by the reader/listener/viewer as truthful, trustworthy credible and valuable; qualities that build a solid reputation.

The revenue imperative and rush to AI answers

However, with today’s spotlight on securing citations in AI search (otherwise known as Generative Engine Optimisation), the factor that might push companies to seek earned media coverage at any cost is an idea floated at the recent pro-manchester event, What AI says about your brand.

Munya Hoto of Hoto Ventures placed principal responsibility for GEO in the hands of an organisation’s chief revenue and chief executive officers because – above all, he said – it’s a “revenue issue”. And if, as quoted from Forrester, “89% of buyers are using genAI tools in every stage of the buying journey”, there is clearly an impact.

So, if PR is seen by revenue owners as the shining knight that will slay the AI dragon threatening to put them out of business, the pressure for marketing and communications teams along with external agencies to deliver earned media results will intensify.

But unlike the techniques adopted by the crafty alchemists of early SEO, there is no mystical method to outwit the journalistic gatekeepers of credible and authoritative media.

Professional and ethical public relations is a must

As a veteran PR professional, it warms the heart that public relations and the practice of media relations to achieve earned media coverage is gaining recognition as the oldest, newest way for organisations to support their strategic objectives.

And in the new gold rush, there is likely to be a dividing line between those who do well by respecting the ethics, values and best practices which cut across the public relations and journalism chasm, and those who don’t.

So, by way of extra advice:

1. By all means, have an earned media strategy – but make sure it’s realistic. Not everything your company wants to communicate will pass muster as something to put in front of a journalist. The C-suite – including CRO/CEO/CMO – need to seek and trust the judgement of their communications colleagues.
2. Your product “story” might not be a story in the eyes of the independent media, but an advert you need to pay for. However, there are other media relations approaches which speak more to your customers’ issues and pain points, thereby resonating with their media and helping earn permission to reference your product.
3. Whether working with PR professionals in-house, agency or both, ensure they take an ethical approach: already, unethical organisations trying to game the quest for earned media by using AI to create fake company experts are already being named and shamed.
4. One of early SEO’s original sins was creating content for the machine rather than the human. For a company’s communications to stand a chance of being cited in GEO, they first need to speak credibly and authoritatively to a human audience consuming content from their chosen media outlet. And that means getting your material past the news desk.