As AI transforms how people discover, research and compare brands, Digital PR has an increasingly important role to play.
Talia French
For years, Digital PR has been an important part of organic search strategies. By securing relevant media coverage, authoritative backlinks and brand mentions, businesses have been able to strengthen their online presence, build credibility and support SEO performance. But the way people search is changing.
Instead of simply typing a few keywords into Google and scrolling through the results, people are increasingly turning to AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT, Google's AI search experiences and Perplexity to ask detailed questions, compare products and discover brands. And these platforms are changing the way businesses need to think about visibility.
Being at the top of Google's search results is still valuable. But what happens when a potential customer asks an AI platform to recommend a product or service, and your brand isn't mentioned? This is where Digital PR has an opportunity to become more important than ever.
One of the most interesting developments in AI search is the role that third-party sources can play in generated answers. A brand can publish plenty of information about itself, but independent publications, expert commentary and external research provide additional sources that people and AI systems may encounter. This is particularly relevant to Digital PR.
Research from Muck Rack, published in December 2025, analysed more than one million links cited by generative AI systems. It found that 82% of citations were classified as earned media, while 94% came from non-paid sources. Importantly, earned media in this research was defined more broadly than traditional journalism. Journalistic sources accounted for approximately 20–30% of citations during the periods studied.
The findings shouldn't be interpreted as evidence that 82% of AI answers rely on newspaper coverage. However, they do highlight the importance of information published beyond a brand's owned channels. For businesses, this presents an opportunity.
When a relevant publication references a company's research, quotes one of its experts or includes the brand in an industry discussion, that coverage creates another independent source of information about the business. It can also help reinforce the subjects, expertise and products associated with that brand.
For example, a travel insurance provider consistently featured in credible articles about winter sports cover could build a stronger presence around that specialist subject.
There is no guarantee that this coverage will result in the brand appearing in an AI-generated recommendation. AI systems use different sources and approaches, and their answers can vary considerably. But relevant earned coverage increases the amount of credible information available about a brand beyond its own website. And that is valuable for traditional search, AI discovery and the people making purchasing decisions.
Traditionally, search visibility has largely been measured through keyword rankings, organic traffic and the authority of a website. Digital PR has supported those objectives by earning backlinks from relevant publications, helping brands build authority and improve their presence in search results. However, AI-powered search introduces another consideration.
When someone asks an AI platform a question, they may receive a summarised answer containing recommendations, comparisons and references to information from across the web. For example, rather than searching for "best travel insurance", someone might ask:
"What's the best travel insurance for a family going skiing in Europe, and what exclusions should I look out for?"
Instead of reviewing multiple websites independently, that person could receive an AI-generated response comparing providers, explaining important policy details and referencing supporting sources. A brand could therefore influence someone's decision before that person has even visited its website. This creates an important distinction between traditional SEO and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO).
While SEO focuses on improving a website's visibility in search engines, GEO considers how brands and their information are discovered, interpreted and represented within AI-generated responses. The two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, many of the foundations overlap. But GEO encourages brands to look beyond their own websites and consider what the wider internet says about them.
It's no longer just about being easy to find. It's about being a brand worth referencing.
Fresh Egg brings together Digital PR, SEO, content and measurement expertise to help identify opportunities and build a more connected strategy for growth.
Backlinks have long been one of the most familiar measures of Digital PR success. And they remain important. A relevant, editorially earned link can help users discover useful information, generate referral traffic and support traditional SEO objectives.
However, AI search is encouraging marketers to think more broadly about the value of earned media. What happens when a respected publication mentions a brand but doesn't include a backlink?
Historically, that coverage might have been considered less valuable from a purely SEO perspective. But research suggests that brand mentions deserve closer attention.
In December 2025, Ahrefs published research examining AI visibility factors across 75,000 brands. The analysis found a stronger correlation between branded web mentions and AI visibility than between the number of pages on a website and AI visibility. This is an interesting finding for Digital PR because it suggests that a brand's wider online presence may be associated with how frequently it appears in AI-generated answers. However, correlation is not causation.
The research doesn't prove that securing more brand mentions will automatically improve AI visibility, or that mentions are more valuable than backlinks in every situation. What it does suggest is that Digital PR measurement should look beyond links alone. Relevant coverage, accurate brand attribution, expert references and consistent associations with specialist topics all deserve consideration.
The question is no longer simply how many links a campaign has earned, but what that coverage helps a brand become known for.
The brands investing in their authority, expertise and reputation today are building the foundations for how they'll be discovered tomorrow.
The emergence of AI search doesn't mean the fundamentals of Digital PR need to be abandoned. Journalist relationships, newsworthy stories, creative campaigns and high-quality coverage remain essential. After all, a story still needs to interest a journalist and provide value to their audience before it has any realistic opportunity to earn coverage. But AI search introduces new considerations into how campaigns are planned, delivered and measured.
Traditional Digital PR campaigns often begin with a creative idea, a trending topic or an interesting dataset. Those approaches can still work.
However, there is an opportunity to connect campaign planning more closely to the questions customers ask when researching and comparing brands. What are they trying to understand? Which products are they comparing? What information would help them make a confident decision?
By identifying these questions, Digital PR teams can develop stories and research that address genuine information gaps.
For example, a travel insurance brand could investigate the most misunderstood winter sports exclusions, using original claims data and expert commentary to explain common pitfalls.
The resulting campaign could provide journalists with a useful story, support relevant content on the brand's website and contribute information that may be referenced in future AI-generated answers. This approach helps connect Digital PR activity to real customer needs rather than coverage opportunities alone.
Traditional Digital PR outreach has often focused on publications with strong authority metrics, relevant readerships and established journalist relationships. Those factors still matter.
But AI search provides another useful source of insight: which publications and pages are already being referenced in answers to relevant customer questions?
Muck Rack's 2025 research highlighted a particularly interesting finding: the overlap between the most-pitched journalists and the most AI-cited journalists in its analysis was just 2%.
This doesn't mean Digital PR teams should abandon existing media relationships or focus exclusively on publications appearing in AI answers. Instead, it suggests that traditional outreach lists may not capture every relevant opportunity. By researching the sources appearing in AI-generated responses, PR teams can identify additional publications, authors and content formats worth investigating. The objective isn't to chase citations at any cost.
It's to understand where audiences are finding information and which sources are helping shape the conversation.
As AI makes it easier to produce and repurpose content, original research and first-hand expertise can help brands offer something genuinely distinctive. There is a difference between publishing another article based on publicly available information and contributing new evidence that others can reference.
Consider a campaign ranking the best cities for remote working. It might generate interest, but similar rankings can be recreated by competitors using the same public datasets.
Now consider a business analysing original survey responses from thousands of remote workers to uncover previously unreported barriers to productivity. That research gives journalists new information to report, readers something useful to learn and the brand a clearer association with the findings.
The strongest Digital PR campaigns should combine compelling storytelling with evidence that can be checked, attributed and understood. That means using clear statistics, transparent methodologies, named experts and accessible supporting content. It's not about creating content specifically for AI.
It's about producing credible information that people find valuable and that other sources can accurately reference.
One-off campaigns can deliver valuable coverage, but they don't always establish what a brand wants to be known for. As AI search evolves, there is an opportunity for Digital PR teams to take a more consistent approach to brand authority.
Rather than pursuing unrelated stories purely because they might attract links, brands can focus on topics closely connected to their expertise, audiences and commercial priorities. For example, a financial services business might want to become recognised for helping first-time buyers understand mortgages.
A coordinated strategy could include original research, expert commentary, consumer advice content and coverage in relevant publications. Over time, this creates a wider body of information associating the brand with a particular subject. It also gives Digital PR a clearer strategic purpose.
Instead of asking only whether a campaign will secure coverage, we should also ask:
What do we want people to recognise this brand for, and how will this story help establish that expertise?
If Digital PR is going to contribute to AI search visibility, the way we evaluate success needs to evolve too. Traditional measures such as coverage volume, referring domains, backlinks and referral traffic remain useful. But they don't provide a complete picture of how a brand is represented across the modern search landscape. A more comprehensive approach could consider four areas:
Earned authority: The relevance and quality of media coverage, unique publishers, backlinks, brand mentions and expert references.
AI visibility: How frequently a brand appears in sampled AI-generated answers, which sources are cited and how its presence compares with competitors.
Audience engagement: Relevant organic search performance, AI referral visits and the quality of traffic reaching the website.
Commercial contribution: Enquiries, assisted conversions, sales and other business outcomes where reliable measurement is possible.
It's important to recognise that AI-generated answers can change between platforms, prompts and individual searches. That makes consistent monitoring over time more useful than drawing conclusions from a single response. It also means being realistic about attribution.
An increase in AI visibility following a Digital PR campaign doesn't automatically prove that the campaign caused it. But by establishing a baseline and measuring changes across earned media, search visibility and business performance, marketers can build a more informed picture of Digital PR's contribution.
Perhaps the biggest opportunity created by AI search isn't a new tactic at all. It's the need for Digital PR, SEO, content and measurement teams to work more closely together. SEO helps establish the technical foundations, useful content and clear customer journeys that make a website discoverable.
Digital PR creates opportunities to earn independent coverage, authoritative links and external recognition. Content teams help turn research and expertise into useful information that audiences can understand. And measurement connects those activities to changes in visibility, engagement and business performance. When these disciplines work together, Digital PR can contribute to something more meaningful than a collection of media placements. It can help build authority around the subjects that matter most to a business.
At Fresh Egg, we believe the strongest approach starts with commercial objectives, builds on genuine evidence and creates stories that people actually want to read.
That means identifying the questions customers are asking, understanding where a brand currently appears, finding opportunities to strengthen its credibility and developing campaigns with a clear strategic purpose. It also means being realistic about what Digital PR can and cannot control. We cannot guarantee editorial coverage, improved rankings or inclusion in AI-generated answers. But we can create stronger evidence, build relevant relationships and improve the opportunities for brands to be discovered and accurately represented.
AI search is changing how people discover information, evaluate businesses and make decisions. For Digital PR, this creates a significant opportunity. The value of a campaign is no longer limited to the backlinks it earns or the coverage it generates at launch. Relevant research, expert commentary and independent media coverage can continue to support a brand's credibility and visibility long after the initial campaign has ended. And as more people use AI-powered tools to research products and services, the information available about a brand across the wider web becomes an increasingly important consideration.
The fundamentals of good Digital PR haven't changed. We still need stories worth telling, journalists who want to publish them and evidence that stands up to scrutiny. What's changing is how we connect that work to brand discovery, authority and commercial impact.
Because in an AI-powered search landscape, it's not enough to rank. You need to be worth citing.
We turn your expertise into stories that earn coverage and help customers discover your brand.
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