Generative AI is transforming how brands communicate, how they’re discovered, and how they build their reputations. In this evolving landscape, press releases must adapt, too.
What does this mean in practice? The audience for press releases is no longer limited to journalists, media outlets, influencers, or search engines like Google. There’s now a new audience to consider: AI language models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.
A report by Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse, titled “What Is AI Reading?”, reveals that organic media accounts for 84% of the citations used by AI models, while sponsored content and advertorials account for just 0.3% of all citations.
The Muck Rack study also reveals that AI models consistently draw on journalistic, academic, and government sources, along with other third-party content, to generate their responses. This reinforces the strategic value of earned media coverage in helping brands gain visibility in AI-generated results.
“We need to write and think with these search engines in mind, recognizing that they generate responses based on vast amounts of data gathered from across the internet. As communications consultants, we need to ensure that the messages our clients and the brands we represent want to convey are clearly and directly reflected in that information,” explains Agustín Trespidi, Account Coordinator at Alurralde, Jasper + Asociados.
This shift means that corporate communications must consider how content is discovered, interpreted, and cited by AI systems. To understand this evolution, there are three key concepts to keep in mind:
SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Optimize content to appear in search results as a link.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): Optimize content so it can be used to provide direct answers through AI assistants and search engines.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): Optimize content to increase the likelihood that AI models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude will select, reference, and cite it in their responses.
AI systems draw on different types of sources to generate responses, including:
- Publicly available content: Blogs, forums, social media, and other digital platforms.
- Trusted sources: News outlets, corporate websites, Wikipedia, and other established sources.
- Structured data: Technical information and metadata that help AI systems understand an organization, brand, or website.
In this ecosystem, the press release plays a strategic role in establishing a brand’s official narrative. Consistent messaging and reliable data help reinforce that narrative, making it easier for journalists and AI models to identify, reference, and cite the brand’s messaging.
“Against this backdrop, communications and PR play an even more strategic role: building authority, credibility, and relevance in a landscape where both people and algorithms shape brand reputations,” Trespidi adds.
How can this be put into practice? A press release should incorporate these five key elements:
- Clear, direct headlines that communicate the main news and include relevant search terms.
- A clear information hierarchy, using subheadings and lists to make the content easier to scan and analyze, with the most important information upfront.
- Verifiable facts and natural-sounding quotes free of jargon, including relevant figures and clearly identified spokespeople.
- A concise, consistent boilerplate that describes the organization without relying on superlatives.
- A clean, indexable HTML page in the press room, complemented by distribution through a newswire service.
For product launches, for example, it’s a good idea to include specific names, explain how the product is used, and provide context. That way, the headline answers four questions: who is launching it, what is being presented, what it’s used for, and in what context.
The press release isn’t going away; it’s evolving into a more specialized tool. In the past, its success was measured by “media impressions.” Today, it also matters whether it gives journalists, media outlets, search engines, and AI models accurate, reliable, and structured information that helps build the brand’s “generative footprint.”
If you’d like to strengthen your brand’s or company’s content strategy, email us at [email protected].
