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Owned media is the lowest-hanging fruit for AI search. Most brands are ignoring it.

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:18:53 GMT

There's a persistent assumption in comms that owned media is a secondary channel — a home for corporate announcements, reformatted press releases, and product updates that exist because someone decided there should be a blog. The real work, the thinking goes, happens in earned media. Owned is the support act.

That assumption is now costing brands visibility, trust, and revenue in the one channel that's reshaping how companies get found and chosen: generative AI search.

The data that should be on every CMO's desk

Hard Numbers' Reputation in the Age of AI study analysed how GPT-4 talks about Forbes' top 100 brands across trust, quality, innovation, and value. The top-line finding is expected: editorial media drives 61% of generative AI responses. But company-owned channels are the second most frequently used source, at 44% — and by far the easiest to update and control.

The category-level data is where it gets interesting. LLMs place significant weight on owned media for innovation claims (66%) and quality (55%), often taking company statements at face value even when explicitly asked whether a brand is trustworthy.

Your owned content isn't just being indexed. It's being cited. The question is whether what's there is worth citing, or whether it's the same boilerplate you uploaded two years ago and haven't touched since.

Overlay buyer behaviour and this stops being theoretical.

G2's 2025 Buyer Behaviour report shows 79% of B2B buyers say AI has changed how they do research. Twenty-nine percent now start that research with LLMs more often than Google. Semrush data puts AI-sourced visitors at roughly 4.4 times the economic value of traditional organic search traffic.

Visibility in AI answers isn't a vanity metric. It's a revenue lever. Which is why getting both your earned and owned content into those answers matters commercially, not just reputationally.

What good actually looks like

When I was working with Microsoft across Asia, their owned news engine — Microsoft Source — was run with journalistic discipline. Not as an aspiration. As an operating standard.

Blogs had editorial rigour. Customer resource centres were structured for discovery, not just compliance. Executive content carried a deliberate narrative arc that connected product launches to customer outcomes to market perspective. Product storytelling wasn't an afterthought bolted onto launch week — it was part of a sustained publishing rhythm.

And here's the part most brands miss: the owned engine made the earned outreach better. When a journalist looked at what Microsoft was already publishing, the substance was visible before the pitch arrived. The owned content wasn't competing with earned — it was underwriting it. Owned as an ally for earned, not a substitute.

That's the model. And it's the opportunity most brands are leaving on the table.

The gap isn't technology. It's editorial discipline.

The comms industry's instinct is to frame every shift as a technology problem. AI is changing search, so you need AI tools. GEO is the new SEO, so you need a GEO platform. The framing keeps budgets flowing toward new capabilities while the underlying content stays exactly the same.

But the real gap is editorial. Most owned media underperforms in AI search for the same reason it underperforms with human readers: it's generic, it's self-serving, and it doesn't say anything a competitor couldn't also say.

An LLM deciding which source to cite for a question about innovation in enterprise software is doing something remarkably similar to what a journalist does when deciding who to quote. It's looking for specificity, authority, and substance. If your owned channels read like a marketing department wrote them — because a marketing department did write them — they'll be passed over for the same reasons a journalist would pass on a thin pitch.

The fix isn't a GEO audit bolted onto the existing content operation. It's a commitment to treating your owned media like a publication: editorial standards, publication rhythms, stories that earn the right to be cited.

Where this lands

The brands that show up consistently in AI-generated answers over the next three years won't be the ones that invested in the most sophisticated AI tooling. They'll be the ones that looked at their owned media ecosystem — the blogs, the resource centres, the executive platforms, the customer stories — and asked a straightforward question:

Would a journalist cite this? If so, would an LLM?

And if the answer was no, they had the discipline to rebuild it until the answer was yes. Not because generative AI search is a trend worth chasing, but because the standard it demands — specificity, substance, editorial rigour — is the standard their content should have met all along.

Owned media has always been the channel brands have the most control over. Now it's also the channel where that control translates most directly into how AI represents you. The lowest-hanging fruit is right there. Most brands just haven't reached for it yet.

Read more of my perspective on Owned media's potential in Campaign Asia: https://tinyurl.com/4zjfbm8h

Five Moves to Take Communications Teams from GenAI Zero to Hero

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 08:51:19 GMT

For the last 12 months, I have been compiling a working encyclopaedia of the best thinking on how generative AI is reshaping brand visibility and commercial outcomes. For communications professionals, the early GenAI hype has now given way to a healthy wariness about a permanent fixture that is both opportunity and nemesis.

Monthly chatbot visits are already north of seven billion, approaching ten per cent of traditional search traffic, and close to half of Copilot’s conversations are commercial in nature. People are now researching, comparing and buying products inside answer engines, highlighting why both brand visibility and the quality of this citation in those environments matters. The second point is moot, and Hard Numbers’ work with Onclusive shows that when your brand shows up in generative search, highly positive earned sentiment makes you around three times more likely to win head‑to‑head commercial comparisons.

The paradox for me is that many communicators still see GenAI as a black box they are “keeping an eye on” rather than a channel their teams must use and drive now. Right away, that usage accountability gap is an own goal. Boston Consulting Group estimates that communications could reclaim 26–36 per cent of its time through GenAI today, rising to 34–47 per cent once teams redesign their workflows.

The mandate is set. If you are a head of communications wondering where to start, here are five moves that will help take you from GenAI Zero to Hero.

1. Reset the mindset: your earned‑first superpower

The first move is not a tool; it is a mindset. We are in the midst of a communications reset with the storyteller back at the centre, framing stories that both humans and algorithms recognise as credible. Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse shows that the vast majority of sources cited in AI answers are non‑paid third‑party sites – journalism, industry outlets, government databases, niche publishers – and that a small group of outlets account for a disproportionate share of citations. In that environment, earned attention does not just build reputation; it defines how machines surface and recommend you.

Communications teams need to stop treating this as someone else’s problem and see it as opportunity. Narrative architecture, operational fluency, media literacy and getting the story straight across constituencies are the critical bridge between human stakeholders and machine discovery. No one else in the organisation is trained for that.

2. Follow the thread: benchmark where you stand

New terrain requires a ball of string to remember the route we have travelled. For GenAI, that means continual measurement and refinement. Expand beyond traditional media and keyword rankings into generative and “zero‑click” surfaces, and track where your brand appears there over time.

A quarterly AI search benchmark is a good starting point. Open ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot and rigorously ask the questions your buyers would ask: “Who are the leading X providers?”, “What is Y known for?”, “Who should I hire for Z?”. Capture where and how your brand appears, what is missing, which competitors show up, and which sources are cited. Treat this as a baseline you intend to move, just as you would share of voice or reputation scores. What gets measured gets managed, even if the dashboards are for now imperfect.

3. Get your own house in order: machine‑readable credibility

You must also provide both people and models with content that is worth repeating. AirOps’ analysis of more than half a million brand pages retrieved by ChatGPT shows that only 15 per cent are ever cited; 85 per cent are ignored. Pages with clear title–query alignment more than double their citation chances, and readable language and mid‑range domain authority tend to outperform jargon‑heavy pages on huge but bland sites. Ahrefs’ earlier work points in the same direction: branded web mentions – how often and how widely you are discussed – correlate more strongly with AI visibility than classic backlinks.

For comms, this is low‑hanging fruit. Sharpen your “about” pages, FAQs, leader bios, case studies and thought leadership. Then think like an LLM: is your explanation of who you are consistent, precise and easy to lift? Does it exist in places that models treat as trustworthy such as LinkedIn, Wikipedia, YouTube transcripts and relevant Reddit communities? The goal is not more content; the goal is targeted, machine‑readable credibility.

4. Put LinkedIn and Reddit on the front row

Next, accept and embrace the other entities where the new gatekeepers get their inputs. Semrush’s citation work across ChatGPT Search, Perplexity and Google’s AI experiences recently put Reddit as the most cited domain (around 11.3 per cent), LinkedIn second (about 11 per cent), followed by Wikipedia and YouTube. This is where real people argue, explain and recommend, and it is feeding generative search.

LinkedIn’s own engineering team has recently confirmed that its rebuilt feed uses LLM‑based embeddings to model topical expertise and engagement history, which means regular, high‑quality contributions on your core themes travel much further than sporadic broadcast posts. Your executives’ LinkedIn presence is therefore a discovery channel, not a vanity project. And if you are absent from the LinkedIn and Reddit conversations that define your category, then AI systems will happily learn from whoever is there instead.

5. Assign real ownership and protect experiments

Finally, none of this happens by osmosis. Both the IPR and Cision point to the same organisational problem: responsibility for AI search visibility sits across SEO, brand, comms and product, which means it risks being nobody’s job. The fifth move is to assign ownership and protect experimentation.

Give a named person or team a 90‑day mandate to own generative visibility: map where you are, prioritise the prompts and categories that matter most, identify the two or three biggest proof gaps, and run structured tests on what gets remembered and repeated. Borrow from marketing’s 70:20:10 rule; keep the engine running, but ring‑fence time and budget for GEO experiments rather than waiting for a crisis to force change. The slow‑lane reverie – that “everyone else is behind, we will catch up later” – simply means the ten per cent who are already doing this will soon be lapping you in visibility, trust and influence.

This is no time for wallflowers

Five moves, starting with mindset, are enough to get moving.

Your ability to connect across cultures and audiences, to turn complexity into explanation and trust, is exactly what will enhance your position in the organisation and keep you shoulder to shoulder with other disciplines in a genuinely integrated team.

This is communications’ moment, not its demise.

How to get ahead with storytelling in a world of AI slop

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:08:09 GMT

As artificial intelligence takes over more of our operational process, rewards will come for those who focus on the one thing that machines are really bad at: articulating a story that humans and algorithms both trust. Storytelling is back, according to Simon Murphy, founder of Indigo Murphy.

Globally, white-collar work has become the next cost base driving wild market swings, with Wall Street acting like “a mob with bats” , indiscriminately searching for the next industry to be hit by AI automation.

This is a familiar theme being felt across the communications sector right now, especially in holding company land where consolidation is both a cost and capability play. The Omnicom–IPG merger , for example, has focused on an estimated US$750 million in annual cost savings tied to severance and “structural expense savings” that will be reinvested in data and AI.

On the surface, it’s about productivity: AI taking on junior production, research and reporting so networks run leaner. Take a look underneath though, and something more interesting is happening. As generative models flood the world with cheap content (aka “AI slop”), brand leaders are rediscovering that what still differentiates isn’t volume, but the human ability to frame a story that clients, regulators, employees and machines recognise as credible.

Key to this according to Professor Scott Galloway are three human skills make you “irreplaceable in an AI world” and should sit within the DNA of any good PR consultant: namely curation, curiosity and connectivity. In a recent episode of his Pivot podcast, Galloway even singles out strategic communications as one of the few jobs he’d bet on being not just safe, but even more important in the AI age.

This is encouraging for current and aspiring storytellers, and it is a signal that is being validated elsewhere. Business Insider recently noted that the hottest job in tech right now isn’t a coder, it’s a storyteller.

Netflix advertised a director of product and technology communications role paying a staggering US$775,000, median Fortune 500 CCO pay rose by US$50,000 in 2025 to between US$400,000 and US$450,000, and Linkedin posts mentioning “storyteller” doubled over 12 months.

The double-edged truth here is that as agencies cull their juniors in a brutal quest to maintain profit, the market is paying a premium for storytellers who can set and defend the narrative.

Three AI-related forces explain this return to vogue.

First, generative AI has created a flood of verbose, generic content (the current state of “thought leadership” on LinkedIn is a moot point in my opinion). Not everyone should presume they can write, which is why former journalists often make the Chief Storyteller transcendence so capably.

Second, AI has changed where trust is formed. Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse study found that 94% of sources cited in AI answers are non-paid third-party sites: journalism, industry outlets, government databases and niche publishers. Half a brand’s AI citations typically come from just 20 outlets, and those outlets vary sharply by brand, even within a category. Visibility is now a rapid precision target game, as citation velocity peaks in the first seven days after publication then just as quickly falls away.

Third, AI has changed when stories matter. Monthly chatbot visits now sit over 7 billion globally, approaching 10% of traditional search traffic. This means that AI writes the first draft of your crisis narrative and your first sales call, using whatever operational stories, filings or activist content it can find. Being ahead of the story is now more paramount, and challenging, than ever.

In this always-on-gorge-everything world, chief storytellers can do three things that AI cannot: they can build a coherent explanation of who the organisation is and ensure it survives contact with sceptics; they can translate operations into “reputation infrastructure” (safety, governance, customer outcomes and proof points) that humans and engines can interrogate and trust; and they can strategically orchestrate story distribution across journalists, Linkedin, Reddit, press wires and owned content so that generative AI accurately treats the organisation as a trusted source, not a blind spot.

Ultimately, in an age optimised for competence, connection is the real premium, and those of us who can communicate, build trust and manage complexity across multiple constituencies will be hardest to automate. In other words, professional storytellers aren’t on the fringes of the AI story; they’re one of the few groups the future is actively tilting towards.

However, with advertising now taking a foothold within generative AI, traditional earned PR and marketing folk are soon going to be rubbing elbows within the same generative environments. It’s time to make nice with our marketing colleagues, or at the very least learn from and emulate them. We cannot afford to be allergic to funnels, attribution or media economics.

In a world of AI slop, storytelling may be the only thing that makes you stand above the crowd.

Today’s chief storyteller must understand how stories travel and how the media business around those stories now works, paying heed to five skills in particular.

Earned visibility through Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)

Influence brand visibility inside generative AI through earned channels. This demands a precise, high-cadence earned programme aimed at the specific journalists, wires and platforms that AI trusts for your category.

Narrative architecture and explanation design

AI is optimised for explanation, framing and recommendation, not just discovery. Design “explanation layers”: clear, consistent narratives about what you do, who you serve and why you’re credible that hold up across thousands of prompts.

Operational fluency and reputation infrastructure

Get close to the business. Winning storytellers understand supply chains, product, compliance and safety deeply enough to turn them into stories about traceability, resilience and outcomes, ensuring those stories are documented and structured so AI has something solid to work with.

Cross-disciplinary marketing literacy

As generative AI compresses discovery, consideration and purchase into a single interface, communicators need to also be able to speak marketing. Marcoms in its truest AI-led sense has arrived. Know how retail media, performance, loyalty and brand safety behave when the “storefront” is a chatbot and align with marketing so that paid, owned and earned stories line up inside AI environments.

Critical thinking and sniffing out the BS

AI is prolific, not wise. The tech companies leading the charge on communications investment do so because they value storytellers as “BS detectors” who can spot cliché, bias and over-claim and design more tactile, grounded storytelling. This requires classic why, what, how storytelling that is sharpened with data: structured thinking, skepticism and the willingness to kill a neat story that isn’t actually true.

AI won’t take the job of a great communicator any time soon. It will, however, make good storytelling the scarce resource that talent, capital and algorithms are all competing to capture.

Good luck to all the current and future storytellers out there.

This story first appeared in Mumbrella’s opinion section on 3 March, 2026

Six Rules for PR in the AI Search Era (An Antidote for Chaos)

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 01:33:28 GMT

Just before Christmas, Arun Sudhaman wrote " Spectres at the Feast ," unpacking Sir Martin Sorrell's BBC Today programme commentary that "there's no such thing as PR anymore." Sudhaman's diagnosis cut deeper than Sorrell's provocation: the real problem isn't whether PR is dead, but whether the industry can reclaim authorship of its own mandate while better-resourced marketing players claim "scaled, digital storytelling" as their territory.

If you work in communications, this should have landed with more of a thud than the usual industry chatter. The strategic high ground of earned storytelling, surely the very thing PR was built to own, is being contested while we're still explaining what we do.

Rather than fuel the "dead or alive" argument, I've decided to treat this moment as a prompt. After 25+ years watching this industry evolve from "press release and prayer" (there is truth in this) to something far more sophisticated and multifaceted (which you and I both know it is), I keep returning to a simple future looking question: how do we build earned credibility that survives in a world where machines increasingly do the summarising?

Seeking inspiration over Christmas, I re-read Jordan B. Peterson's 12 Rules for Life (2018) , which argues for choosing order over chaos by starting with what you can control. Six of his rules struck me as unexpectedly helpful signposts for communications in response to this question.

1) Stand up straight with your shoulders back

PR has a habit of underselling itself, then wondering why it gets treated as a cost centre.

If we want a seat at the table, we need to show up like we belong there. That means describing our work in terms that matter to the business: risk reduced, regulatory heat lowered, reputation enhanced, customer confidence sustained, purchase decisions accelerated.

The final outcome is especially salient. As the AI search era gathers pace, earned credibility is a commercial driver. Recent research from Onclusive found that brands with highly positive earned media sentiment are three times more likely to win in head-to-head commercial comparisons. When your organisation is being described by AI answer engines using other people's words, the quality of those third-party words matters more than ever.

Show your stakeholders what your organisation's ChatGPT profile looks like versus your competitor's. That gap becomes your business case.

2) Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world

This rule is painfully practical. Before complaining about Sorrell's barbs, let's fix the basics.

Most organisations still have trust gaps hiding in plain sight: dated FAQs, vague positioning, thin "about" pages, leadership profiles that say nothing, verbose thought leadership that says even less. Getting your house in order - namely your own content - isn't just good brand housekeeping. It's the very foundation that feeds the machines.

Generative engines reward clarity, consistency, and credible sources. If you want to show up well in AI-mediated discovery, make your backyard legible:

A well-structured website explaining what you do, who you serve, and what proof you have
FAQs answering real stakeholder questions, not the ones you wish they asked
Clear, quotable narratives for leaders, with verifiable supporting facts
Useful, authoritative content that earns its place rather than fills space

Research from my UK based partner Hard Numbers shows that large language models source information from a blend of editorial media, owned content, and other high-authority online sources. This makes Gen AI a force multiplier for existing content efforts. It's not glamorous, but it's compound interest.

3) Tell the truth, or at least don't lie

Trust is significantly undervalued in today's climate, which makes it worth the investment.

In an AI-shaped information environment, credibility is currency and contradictions are tax. Applied habits of yesteryear - massaging reality, spinning weak stories, hiding behind euphemisms - don't just look bad anymore. They're expensive own goals.

The strongest communications teams aren't the ones who "win the narrative." They're the ones who help organisations behave in ways that can be defended, explained, and repeated without regret to both human and machine stakeholders, all the while building trust.

Simple test: would we be comfortable seeing a questionable claim quoted back to us on a chatbot, out of context, in six months? If not, tighten it or drop it.

4) Be precise in your speech

Vagueness can be the more comfortable path, but precision is about being understood. It's the difference between "we are committed to innovation" and "here's what we changed, why we changed it, and how we measure whether it worked."

In generative search, precision is also how you become citeable. If AI systems increasingly act as the first filter between stakeholders and your brand, then "machine-readable credibility" becomes part of the job. Fewer fluffy adjectives, more concrete proof points, more conversational straight talk that can survive repetition across sources.

The goal isn't volume. The goal is reliable information that scales.

5) Make friends with people who want the best for you

Earned has always been a team sport.

In the old world, this meant fostering relationships with journalists, editors, and producers. That still matters, but the stakeholder circle has widened. Today your credibility is shaped by analysts, academics, creators, industry advocates, government, NGOs, employees, customers, traditional media, and niche communities.

The modern earned play is less "spray and pray" and more "build a citation-rich ecosystem." You want credible third parties saying consistent, positive things about you for reasons that stand up to scrutiny.

Internally, the same rule applies. If PR wants to lead in the AI search era, it can't sit downstream of decisions. Build allies across product, legal, customer, HR, risk, and the C-suite, not to ask permission, but to shape reality before it hits the headlines or the model.

6) Do not bother children when they are skateboarding

If PR is to evolve, we must protect experimentation.

Marketing figured this out with the 70:20:10 rule. As Rory Sutherland notes , you need the 10% of honeybees following random routes to find new pollen when the old supply dries up.

Communications has been too risk-averse to adopt this discipline. We need to fix that.

Most communications teams I know run flat out just to keep up with the cycle of work coming their way, which means change happens only after something breaks. That's a rough way to live.

Fortune favours the bold. Ringfence time for structured tests in AI search optimisation, not gimmicks or prompt hacks, but real experiments that teach you what gets remembered and repeated:

Which thought leadership formats earn citations, not just clicks
Which proof points travel through third-party sources
Which questions stakeholders actually ask AI tools about your category
Which owned assets improve clarity and reduce confusion

Small falls are the price of progress. Better to have them in controlled pilots than in crises.

Reclaiming the Mandate

Can the PR sector reclaim authorship of its mandate, demonstrating that its counsel and capabilities are indispensable? That's the right question for 2026, but it requires us to stop asking for permission and start demonstrating competence.

The "press release and a prayer" version of PR is mercifully long gone. The discipline that's emerged - earning trust, building understanding, architecting reputation in an age of algorithmic mediation - is more valuable and measurable than ever. But as the AI search era gathers pace, the strategic high ground of earned storytelling is not ours by default.

We have to take it.

This article first appeared on Earned First on 20 January 2026.

How many PR pros still use AVE?

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 07:06:47 GMT

Well, this is disheartening.

According to the PRCA's 2025 census , more than one in three PR professionals (37%) still rely on Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) as a performance metric.

For those outside the industry: AVE multiplies earned coverage (column centimetres or broadcast seconds) by advertising rate card prices, usually with a 3x multiplier to reflect editorial credibility.

Traditional media pitching is still important, but back when coverage outcomes dominated communications goals, the AVE method always held appeal when showing a dollar figure mattered most – and perhaps this resurgence reflects our bottom-line-obsessed times.

But I find it short-sighted.

When attention today is earned through respected influencer perspectives, and brand visibility demands influence within generative AI search results that drives actual business value, shouldn't we have the courage to adopt measurement approaches based on reputation and business outcomes – real impact that transcends impressions and likes?

When I was at Edelman, we championed the 3 A's of measurement (A³): Awareness, Advocacy, and Action. Clients loved the thinking, though budget rarely matched ambition. I've long envied marketing's deeper pockets and appreciation for brand science that definitively proves campaign ROI.

As we approach 2026 – with earned storytelling leading the charge in training machine learning models – we should be reaching beyond outdated vanity metrics to demonstrate communications' true value.

Am I wrong?

How Soon Is Now

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 04:03:24 GMT

Earned attention has always been the backbone of reputation. Whilst traditional media engagement is a conduit for reaching important human stakeholders, with the unstoppable rise of Generative AI there is a new audience that must be factored into the earned equation. Training and influencing the machines will be an endurance race that is already well underway.

As communications leaders consider how to encourage their teams to rise to the challenge, the question that comes up most often is: if we pivot now, how soon will our efforts be rewarded? The honest answer is that it depends. Days, weeks or months, based on a selection of cases shared below. But here is what every communications lead needs to hear upfront: if you are waiting for certainty before you start, you are already falling behind.

Successfully showing up in GenAI search requires a significant "shift and lift" of your current communications strategy, and the sooner the better. This means optimising your earned and owned assets (often referred to as Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO) and conducting regular benchmarking to continually measure and fine-tune your efforts. GEO can be thought of as the evolution of SEO for environments where large language models increasingly mediate discovery. The algorithms and sources driving Generative AI search remain enigmatic and constantly evolving, forming a new track around which we must run. It is still early days, but the race has begun.

The fast wins: days to weeks

Noah Greenberg, CEO at Stacker, has talked extensively about how PR and content teams can positively impact chatbot results overnight. In one example, he shows how a study commissioned by tech recruitment firm Checkr on the best U.S. job markets was quickly picked up by Tier 1 outlets including Newsweek and CBS,¹ and within about a month, Checkr was being mentioned consistently in relevant AI conversations.

A similar earned exercise conducted by LinkedIn's team saw its 2025 top U.S. college report placed as an exclusive in Town & Country. According to communications team lead Katherine O'Hara², this catapulted the branded study to a top search result in ChatGPT almost overnight, though as discussed later, it remains impossible to know exactly what free-tier users see.

Both cases illustrate how earned thought leadership, when executed strategically and backed by data, can become the new top of funnel. It is no longer just about media mentions; it is about structuring your narrative so that traditional media coverage helps surface it in AI-powered discovery.

A more systematic example comes from content marketing agency Mint Studios, who tested multiple tactics for improving brand visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini.³ They found purpose-built “GPT articles” – short, factual 500–1,000 word pieces designed to answer individual prompts – delivered the strongest results.

Using this approach across their clients and tracking visibility, citation usage and share of AI mentions, they reported AI visibility increases between 40% and 246%, with one brand going from zero to appearing in multiple key prompts within a week. This uplift also appeared for clients with minimal SEO presence or domain authority. Other tactics tested, including prompt injection and LLM.txt files, showed no meaningful impact, while digital PR and FAQs provided moderate benefit.

The takeaway for communications leaders: your own well-structured, factual media content is low-hanging fruit that can and should be engineered to complement earned activity.

The long game

But are results in days or weeks realistic for brands outside niche spaces, without specialist content agency support, or when trying to reach audiences not using premium LLM tools (and therefore not benefiting from live web results in responses)? Christopher S. Penn, co-founder and Chief Data Scientist of Trust Insights, is one of the more rigorous voices on AI optimisation. In a recent newsletter debunking AI optimisation myths, he highlights a crucial limitation: no one other than the AI companies themselves knows what people actually type into generative AI tools, which makes it near impossible to get a fully accurate read on performance.⁴

What does sit within our control is the ability to create and distribute accessible content – or “knowledge,” as Penn frames it – about ourselves and our brands across as many relevant places as possible to train the machines. To drive AI visibility, he advocates a three-phase AI optimisation approach that begins with content development (where storytellers can make the greatest impact), followed by SEO and website management. His core advice is simple but demanding: be everywhere you can reasonably be to create a corpus of work that AI model makers can consume and train on. YouTube, podcasts, blog posts, newsletters, press releases, plus traditional media coverage both niche and mainstream are all fair game.

Breadth is better than precision for GenAI, at least at this stage. The reward, however, requires patience. According to Penn, when optimising for Phase 1, stakeholders should be advised that results on large foundation models like GPT-5 or Gemini 3 may take up to a year, given the lag time for model makers to ingest data and retrain. For smaller models, six months is the bare minimum. A year is a long time in communications, which means this has to be framed as a team endurance exercise, with regular pit stops for measurement, learning and alignment with colleagues across the business.

Why This Matters Now

The genie is out of the bottle. GenAI search is forecast to surpass traditional search by 2028,⁵ as more people turn to chatbots for zero-click information that informs both personal and business decisions. The numbers are already compelling:

89% of B2B buyers now use generative AI as a top source of self-guided information across every phase of the buying process.⁶
52% of Gen Z users say they trust generative AI to help them make informed decisions.⁷
LLM search visitors are estimated to be worth 4.4 times the average traditional organic search visitor based on conversion rates.⁷

This is the new reputation arena. Communications teams, with their experience in narrative, message discipline and stakeholder orchestration, are uniquely positioned to lead the race. The organisations that understand this early will be the ones whose brands show up most consistently, credibly and usefully when machines are asked to explain what they do.

Where to Start

If you are a communications leader, three shifts will help you move from awareness to action:

Shift traditional thinking. The old playbook of securing coverage and moving on no longer applies. Every piece of earned media is now training data for AI systems that will shape how your brand is discovered and described for years to come. Treat major stories as ongoing assets to be repurposed, structured and redistributed, and make sure you are bringing key stakeholders from across the business on this journey.
Build visible authority and expertise. Focus on creating structured, factual, citable content that AI systems can easily parse. This includes data-rich research, clear positioning on the topics you want to own, and consistent signals of expertise across channels and formats. Thought leadership should be designed to answer the kinds of questions your audiences actually ask, not just to land a one-day headline.
Elevate your approach to content and earned media. This is not about content volume for its own sake. It is about intentionally developing that corpus of work that answers audience questions in formats AI can ingest and surface – from GPT articles and FAQs to research reports, explainers and multimedia assets. Your earned work becomes both proof of authority and raw material for LLM training.

The rewards from this machine-led race may surface in days, months or years depending on your category, tactics and model cycles. What is clear is that waiting for a perfect playbook or precise attribution will only cede ground to faster movers. The leaders are already past the 5km mark; the most important decision now is simply to start running.

Sources:

"Map Shows Cities With the Best Job Markets," Newsweek, July 2025: https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-cities-best-job-markets-2104095

Noah Greenberg, LinkedIn: “PR & content teams are impacting ChatGPT results faster than SEO,” September 2025 (includes LinkedIn / Town & Country college rankings example): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/noahg_pr-content-teams-are-impacting-chatgpt-activity-7362092296093245440-nga6/

"Want LLMs to Recommend Your Brand? Here's What We've Found Works: GPT Articles," Mint Copywriting Studios: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/blog/gpt-articles

"Setting the Record Straight on AI Optimization," Christopher S. Penn, Almost Timely News, June 2025: https://www.christopherspenn.com/2025/06/almost-timely-news-setting-the-record-straight-on-ai-optimization-2025-06-22/

"We Studied the Impact of AI Search on SEO Traffic," Semrush, June 2025: https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-search-seo-traffic-study/

"B2B Buyer Adoption of Generative AI," Forrester Buyers' Journey Survey, 2024: https://www.forrester.com/report/b2b-buyer-adoption-of-generative-ai/RES181769

"Generative AI Statistics for 2024," Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/generative-ai-statistics/

"Average LLM Visitor Worth 4.4x Organic Search Visitors," Semrush/MarTech, June 2025: https://martech.org/average-llm-visitor-worth-4-4x-organic-search-visitors/

The Sentiment Factor: Why Quality Earned Media Now Determines AI Recommendations

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 23:42:49 GMT

I've been banging the drum about the Great Communications Reset for a while now, and if you've been following along, you'll know my core argument: we're living through a once-in-a-generation opportunity for communications professionals to reclaim strategic territory that matters.

But here's what I haven't stressed enough – and what new research has now quantified in stark terms:

It's not just about getting earned media coverage anymore. It's about the quality and sentiment of that coverage.

Fresh research from Hard Numbers and Onclusive titled "Recommendations in the Age of AI" has put hard numbers to something many of us suspected but couldn't prove: brands with high-quality, positively framed earned media don't just show up more often in large language model outputs – they win decisively when it matters most.

And by "win", I mean actual commercial outcomes.

The study examined over 100 global brands to understand how earned media influences category recommendations within ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other LLM platforms. The findings are unambiguous:

Brands in the top 10% for media influence get recommended by LLMs around 80% of the time, compared to under 50% for brands in the bottom 10%.

That's a 30-point gap in visibility. In commercial terms, that's the difference between being discovered and being invisible.

But here's where it gets really interesting – and where most communications teams are still missing the point.

Brands in the top 10% for positive media sentiment are nearly twice as likely to receive low concern scores from AI platforms.

Think about that for a moment. When someone asks ChatGPT "What are the concerns about [your brand]?", the machine's response is directly influenced by the tone and sentiment of your earned media footprint.

And in head-to-head "Which brand is better?" prompts, high-sentiment brands are around three times more likely to win against competitors.

Three times.

The pattern is unmistakable. It's not enough to be in the story anymore. The actual tone of that story – whether it's positive, neutral, or negative – is now a performance metric inside the machine.

Why Sentiment Matters More Than Volume

For years, communications teams have been measured on reach, impressions, and coverage volume. The logic was simple: more coverage equals more visibility equals better outcomes.

But generative AI platforms don't work that way.

LLMs aren't counting your clips. They're synthesising narratives. They're looking for patterns across trusted sources to form coherent, credible responses. And in that synthesis process, the quality and tone of individual pieces of coverage matter far more than the sheer volume.

A single deeply positive feature in a trusted publication – one that positions your brand as innovative, trustworthy, and delivering genuine value – can influence AI outputs more effectively than a dozen generic mentions.

This is why the Hard Numbers and Onclusive research is so significant. It's not telling us to chase more coverage. It's telling us to chase better coverage.

Coverage that:

Comes from authoritative, trusted sources that LLMs prioritise
Contains clear, structured information that machines can parse
Positions your brand with positive sentiment and credible third-party validation
Addresses the specific attributes that matter in your category (trust, innovation, value, quality)

The Agentic Commerce Reality Check

Here's why this matters right now, not in some distant future.

With OpenAI and others rapidly advancing agentic capabilities, LLMs are evolving from passive information retrieval tools into active brand recommenders and decision-makers.

We're entering an era where AI doesn't just inform purchasing decisions – it makes them.

ChatGPT can already browse the web, compare products, and make recommendations. The next iteration will be able to complete transactions autonomously on behalf of users. When someone says "ChatGPT, find me the best project management software for a team of 15 and set up a trial," the machine won't serve up 10 blue links. It will make a decision.

And that decision will be heavily influenced by your earned media footprint – specifically, the sentiment and quality of that footprint.

What This Means for In-House Teams

If you're leading communications for a brand right now, here's what you need to be doing:

1. Audit your current earned media sentiment

Don't just count clips. Analyse the tone and positioning of your coverage across key publications. Are you consistently positioned positively? Are the attributes being emphasised the ones that matter for your category?

This isn't vanity work. This is understanding what the machines are learning about you.

2. Prioritise quality over quantity in media relations

One deeply positive feature in a tier-one publication or respected trade outlet is worth more than a dozen generic mentions. Invest your time in cultivating relationships with journalists who can deliver substantive, authoritative coverage.

Focus your pitching on stories that genuinely demonstrate value, innovation, and trustworthiness – the attributes that LLMs prioritise when forming recommendations.

3. Structure your owned content for machine readability

Your newsroom, blog, and website content are also training the machines. Make sure they're doing the job properly.

Use clear, structured formats (FAQs, how-tos, product comparisons). Implement schema markup. Update content regularly. Ensure your "About Us" and core product pages use consistent language that mirrors how you want to be discovered.

4. Monitor your AI footprint regularly

You should be querying ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity regularly with category-relevant prompts to understand:

How often you're being recommended
What's being said about you
Which sources are being cited
How you stack up against competitors

This isn't optional anymore. This is reputation management in 2025.

5. Measure what matters

Move beyond AVE and reach. Start tracking:

Share of positive sentiment vs competitors
Citation frequency in AI outputs
Win rate in head-to-head AI comparisons
Sources that most influence your AI reputation

These are the metrics that actually correlate with commercial outcomes in the AI-driven discovery era.

The Bottom Line

Regular, high-quality earned media has become a key driver of whether a brand is surfaced, recommended, and ultimately purchased through generative AI platforms.

The brands that understand this – that invest in building authoritative, sentiment-rich earned narratives – will dominate tomorrow's reputation landscape.

The ones treating communications as a tick-box exercise, chasing volume over quality, will become increasingly invisible where it matters most.

This is the Great Communications Reset in action. The opportunity is significant, but it requires a fundamental shift in how we think about earned media success.

It's not about the clip anymore. It's about what that clip teaches the machine.

And the machines are learning fast.

You can access the full "Recommendations in the Age of AI" research report from Hard Numbers and Onclusive [here - link ].

Making the business case for Generative Engine Optimisation

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 07:13:54 GMT

There's a healthy skepticism about Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), and understandably so. An infinite number of prompt possibilities, training data that's a black box, less direct evaluation metrics than we're used to in an emerging field... But as Stephen Waddington points out, we've been here before - first with search, then with social media.

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When the writing's on the wall, the answer isn't to bury our heads in the sand. It's to do the work. To experiment, measure what we can, be honest about what we don't know, and relentlessly test and learn.

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In the last six months, we’ve seen businesses across the board waking up to the transformative impact GEO will not only have in the future, but is having on brand discovery today. If you're fighting to make the business case within your organisation, we’ve put together this guide to help.

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...in the words of Harry Truman, imperfect action is better than inaction

1. The market reality

If GEO is the elephant in the room, it's now impossible to ignore. AI is a general-purpose technology. Exploring GEO isn't a frivolous experiment but a necessary response to market reality. The (ahem) hard numbers tell the story:

1.49 billion downloads of AI applications in 2024 alone
92% of Fortune 500 companies are already using ChatGPT
ChatGPT daily active users have increased 4x in the last year
ChatGPT hit 365 billion annual searches in just 2 years (that’s 5.5x faster than Google)
89% of buyers are using generative AI in at least one area of their purchasing process

When over 540 million people are actively using ChatGPT each month, we're not talking about early adopters anymore. Gen AI is the single biggest shift in user behaviour since the smartphone.

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2. Winning minds, not clicks

The notion of "zero click" has caused panic in the digital marketing community. But with consumption and discovery happening in the same place, there's an opportunity to win something more valuable than site traffic. We're not in the camp proclaiming “SEO is dead” for a multitude of reasons. But if SEO helps brands win clicks, GEO is what helps them win minds.

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The killer stat? A visitor referred via an LLM is worth 4.4x the value of a visitor from traditional organic search. According to SEMRush, "AI search visitors tend to convert better because LLMs can equip users with all the information they need to make a decision." This makes perfect sense. By the time an AI search user reaches your website, they've likely already compared options and made some form of selection. So, they’re much more likely to convert.

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3. What gets measured gets managed

What gets measured gets managed... and what gets managed gets budget. One of the biggest challenges to GEO investment currently is a lack of viable evaluation metrics. But in the words of Harry Truman, imperfect action is better than inaction. Start by quantifying current AI-referral traffic to your site and how it has grown historically versus other channels.

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You can also gather feedback directly, or through sales, on customer journeys. Case in point: a Hard Numbers client recently closed a deal with a prospect who'd used ChatGPT to research and shortlist potential vendors.

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4. The first mover advantage

They say the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese... Well, what if the cheese keeps moving? With the rapid development of what I like to call "AI-enabled everything," being first - even failing first - can deliver a competitive edge. Look no further than OpenAI's dominance if you need convincing.

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At Hard Numbers, we've spoken to businesses at every different stage of the GEO spectrum over the last 12 months. Even once-wary brands are now waking up to the GEO opportunity. But many aren't fully grappling with this new area, creating a meaningful first-mover advantage for those who act now.

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5. A high trust channel

A direct benefit of GEO is building brand awareness in a channel with serious user trust. The indirect benefit is you’re driving broader awareness by increasing your number of brand citations across the web. You can track these citations through Share of Search and branded search volume. In lieu of standardised metrics, use what you already have; existing measurement frameworks can make useful proxies.

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6. Expanding comms' influence

PR missed the boat on SEO and social media. Letting others steal a march on GEO isn't restraint, it's surrender. The field currently has no owner or line item in the budget. This means an opportunity for comms teams to expand their influence, while ensuring the right checks and balances are in place in an emerging field.

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7. GEO as a force multiplier

GEO doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's a critical evolution of earned and owned content strategy, which means there's no function better placed than comms to ensure an integrated approach. Our research shows large language models (LLMs) source their information from editorial media, owned content, and other high-authority online content. This makes Gen AI an important force multiplier for existing content efforts.

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8. Upskill to stay ahead

The biggest barrier to GEO investment isn't budget, it's a knowledge gap. When you can't confidently explain how LLMs work on a basic level, you're fighting an uphill battle in the boardroom. But GEO is still so nascent that even a foundational understanding puts you ahead of 90% of your peers. That's why we made our GEO primer , to give comms professionals the knowledge they need to speak with authority about what we know, while being honest about what we don't.

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The bottom line: Is GEO messy and uncertain? Absolutely. Do we have all the answers? Definitely not. In fact, you should treat anyone claiming to be “GEO expert” with *extreme* caution. But the boat is leaving the dock, and waiting for clearer waters is how you get left behind.

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Want to learn more about the GEO opportunity? Download our latest research with Onclusive or to book a free 'Intro to GEO' training session for your team, email claire@hardnumbers.co.uk

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***

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Sources and further reading:

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1 https://backlinko.com/most-popular-ai-apps

2 https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/number-of-chatgpt-users/

3 https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/04/openai-chatgpt-700-million-users.html

4 https://www.fortuneindia.com/technology/chatgpt-hits-365-billion-annual-searches-55x-faster-than-google/123663

5 https://www.forrester.com/report/b2b-buyer-adoption-of-generative-ai/RES181769

Have Yourself a GEO Little Christmas

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 08:20:51 GMT

I'll be first to admit that I've been banging on about brand reputation and GenAI for a while now – how Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) and earned media can shape reputation in the age of chatbots, particularly for B2B organisations. But ChatGPT launching its own web browser Atlas this week got me thinking: what about the consumer play?

My timing couldn't be better. Adobe recently dropped their 2025 US Holiday Shopping Forecast , and the numbers - whilst U.S.-centric - are illuminating. Adobe surveyed 5,000 American consumers and found that not only are online sales expected to crack $250 billion for the first time, but GenAI-powered referrals to retail sites are projected to surge over 500% year-over-year during the holiday season, peaking around Thanksgiving.

And there's more chunky numbers to dwell on.

Back in August, traffic from GenAI sources to retail sites was already up 1,500% YoY. What's more, three-quarters of consumers say they're already familiar with AI assistants, over a third are actively using them, and 95% report satisfaction with their AI-influenced purchases.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The commercial stakes are real.

If you're not showing up in GenAI, you're essentially invisible to a rapidly growing segment of consumers who are using ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude the same way they used to use Google. Except these tools don't just serve up links – they make recommendations, build trust, and increasingly, drive purchasing decisions.

This shifts the brand-building game entirely.

Traditional SEO focused on keywords and backlinks. But Large Language Models (LLMs) prefer information structured differently – think detailed product FAQs, step-by-step guides, and clear, bulleted formats that can answer the thousands of specific questions people fire at AI chatbots.

Sure, we'll likely see more commercial partnerships between brands and big tech (hello, OpenAI and Walmart), but right now, arguably the most effective way to build brand awareness and trust in GenAI environments is through communications – both owned and earned.

Why? Hard Numbers' landmark Reputation in the Age of AI research, while focused on corporate reputation queries, reveals a principle that's fundamental to how LLMs operate: they overwhelmingly rely on earned and owned media to form their 'opinions' about brands. In their study of the world's 100 largest brands, 61% of brand-related content came from earned sources, rising to 65% for trust assessments and 72% for value perceptions.

There's every reason to believe this pattern extends to B2C purchase recommendations. After all, when consumers ask "What's the best running shoe?" or "Which TV should I buy?", LLMs are drawing from the same credible sources: product reviews, expert comparisons, media features, and third-party recommendations.

All earned media.

So, what's a communicator to do?

I've been following Sarah Evans ' work closely – she's one of the sharpest minds on this topic and writes regularly in her PR@ctical newsletter . Some of her practical GenAI gold dust includes:

Build a "prompt universe": Map out the purchase-intent queries showing up in LLMs for your category, then reverse-engineer earned storylines that answer these questions. Think like your customer, not your brand team.
Optimise for citability, not just coverage: A targeted earned media program that delivers third-party validation and credible citations beats spray-and-pray pitching every time. Quality trumps quantity when it comes to training the machines.
Write like an analyst: AI platforms view analysts as credible expert voices. Pair every claim with solid citations, publish content (FAQs, how-tos, guides) in machine-readable formats, and refresh it regularly. Make it easy for LLMs to trust and cite you.
Measure your GenAI visibility: If your brand shows up in less than 40% of relevant AI responses, you're essentially invisible where buying decisions now start. You can't improve what you don't measure – and in this new landscape, measurement isn't optional.

For traditional PR folks (like me), the question is no longer "Did we get coverage?" It's "Are we being remembered – and trusted – by AI?"

Because as Adobe's Christmas spending projections make crystal clear, that trust increasingly translates to measurable commercial impact. The brands that master this shift will own the attention economy. The ones that don't might as well be invisible.

So, here's to a GEO little Christmas – may your brand be cited, trusted, and top of mind when consumers ask AI where to spend their money.

MEDIA RELEASE: indigo murphy Launches Verbaitim™ and Partners with Hard Numbers to Help Communications Teams Master Generative Engine Optimisation

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 23:33:07 GMT

Melbourne, Australia – 16 October 2025, Communications advisory firm indigo murphy has launched Verbaitim™, a service developed for communications teams seeking to strengthen brand visibility in AI-powered search environments. Coinciding with this launch, indigo murphy has formalised a partnership with Hard Numbers, a UK-based performance-driven marketing consultancy, to deliver expertise in Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) across Australia, Asia Pacific and further afield.

As both business and consumer audiences increasingly turn to sources such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity for information, GEO has become the essential process for being cited, recalled, and trusted within AI-driven platforms. Large Language Models (LLMs) are now critical influencers on reputation, retrieving and repeating information they recognise as credible, while heightening the responsibility for communications leaders to ensure accurate brand representation in AI-generated outputs.

Understanding that AI is supercharging editorial media's influence on corporate reputation, driving 61% of content about a brand [1] , Verbaitim™ has been designed to support in-house communications functions in expanding their earned storytelling to drive trust and authenticity within GenAI environments.

The programme delivers practical, scalable guidance across three core service lines: workshops that educate communications teams on earned attention in the GenAI era; comprehensive brand and narrative audits, benchmarking presence within AI-generated content alongside recommended pathways forward; and continued advisory support empowering teams to adapt and demonstrate their value as the reputation landscape shifts.

“We are living through a Great Communications Reset,” commented Simon Murphy, Founder of indigo murphy. “Reputation is increasingly dictated not by traditional channels, but by how brands appear within AI platforms. Communications professionals therefore have a generational leadership opportunity to tackle this with earned storytelling, and Verbaitim™ equips them for the challenge.”

Murphy added: “Our partnership with Hard Numbers delivers scale, breadth and commercial rigour that strengthens the business value of communications for growth and resilience.”

Darryl Sparey, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Hard Numbers, said: “With our Reputation in the Age of AI research , which we released in November of last year, we were one of the first PR agencies globally to establish how earned media impacted how brands are portrayed by LLMs. By applying this research to our practice, we’ve developed considerable expertise in helping our clients to monitor and shape how they appear within content produced by AI systems about their brands, products, services or category. We are delighted to collaborate with indigo murphy to support progressive teams in Australia and Asia Pacific, bringing our commercial focus to a changing PR landscape.”

The agreement with Hard Numbers enhances the Verbaitim™ offer, providing increased scale, commercial discipline and access to leading multisector performance marketing approaches that will help communications teams maximise their earned media footprint.

“As conventional web traffic declines, AI-driven search results achieve significantly higher conversion rates [2] , making authority the new competitive advantage,” added Murphy. “In this environment, where narrative is determined by algorithms, Verbaitim™ helps clients take ownership of reputation-focused activity, with earned action being the key to unlocking future opportunities.”

To learn more about Verbaitim™ please visit www.indigomurphy.com/verbaitim or email simon@indigomurphy.com .

About indigo murphy

indigo murphy provides advisory solutions to help organisations manage reputation challenges amid geopolitical uncertainty, technology disruption and shifting influence in the communications landscape.

About Hard Numbers

Hard Numbers is a performance-driven, data-informed marketing and communications consultancy, with a focus on delivering tangible, demonstrable return on investment for our clients. We create campaigns that drive pipeline, sales and company growth for fast-moving business-to-business companies. We speak in plain English. We hate jargon. We work very hard. We utilise technology to make us more efficient. We use continuous professional development to make us better at our practice. And we measure and deliver meaningful results. Not just reach. In uncertain times, you need Hard Numbers .

[1] Reputation in the Age of AI: how Large Language Models (LLMs) influence perceptions of Quality, Trust, Innovation, and Value in brand communications – Hard Numbers (November 2024)

[2] AI Search SEO Traffic Study – Semrush (July 2025)

Earned Media Has Got Its Sexy Back (And It’s Time To Get On Board)

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 05:23:49 GMT

Once upon a time, earned media meant one thing: getting a story in the newspaper or being interviewed on the nightly news. That was the goalpost for visibility and credibility.

And it still matters.

But here’s the kicker: Earned media today is so much more, and it's never been more powerful for building trust, influence, and reputation for business and personal brands.

We’re not consuming media like we used to. We’re not all sitting around watching the 6pm news bulletin or flipping through glossy magazines.

These days, we scroll. We binge podcasts. We subscribe to Substacks. We check out Instagram Reels or TikTok videos. We dip in and out of YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Twitter/X. Our habits have changed as the media ecosystem has evolved.

So if you're a founder, a solo business owner, an expert advisor, or a thought leader building your professional brand, take note. Earned media is evolving, and if you understand how to leverage its power, it can do a lot of heavy lifting for you.

The new shape of earned media

Let’s start with the basics. Earned media is any kind of exposure you don’t pay for and don’t publish yourself - it's conferred upon you by someone else.

FOR EXAMPLE: A journalist quoting you in a story. A podcast host inviting you on as a guest. A customer raving about your service on LinkedIn. A peer citing your insights in their newsletter. A speaker featuring a quote from you in their keynote presentation.

It’s independent, and often carries perceived third-party validation and endorsement.

And it’s certainly more credible and believable than any ad campaign you can come up with!

Bottom line: It can’t be bought, it needs to be earned. This is the hallmark of public relations, and while there’s a whole lot more to PR today than just earned media, it represents the roots of the discipline.

Indeed, when I first started working as a PR consultant some three decades ago, generating media publicity formed a large part of what I did day-to-day (we didn’t call it earned media then). Of course, the world’s changed a lot since then but the concept of earned media continues to matter when it comes to building brand visibility and authority.

But here's where it gets interesting.Earned media today includes not only mainstream press but also things such as:

podcast guest appearances
influencer shout-outs
user-generated content
unsolicited testimonials
reposts and recommendations across social platforms
mentions in Reddit threads or Quora answers
citations in niche industry blogs
opinion pieces in trade publications
quotes in Substack newsletters
organic shares of your content across communities you didn’t seed yourself

It’s all earned, and it’s all-powerful, because people trust third parties more than they trust your marketing.

The AI Factor: What’s changed?

Okay, so we’ve got the multitude of media channels - major outlets, well-established niche publications, owned media such as blogs and podcasts, YouTube, and the raft of social media platforms.

If the seismic shifts that have occurred in the media over the past 20 years or so wasn’t enough, we now have to layer in generative AI.

Tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity are changing how people find and validate information. These tools don’t just search the internet - they synthesise it. What they surface is often based on trusted mentions and citations from articles, interviews, transcripts, and forums. While models like Claude don’t currently browse the web, they still draw on a wide range of high-quality public data to generate context-rich responses.

In other words: your earned media - those mentions, quotes, interviews, and citations - are not just reaching people, they're training the machines that influence the people.

If someone asks ChatGPT, “Who’s an expert on sustainable architecture?” or “Best podcast guests on digital leadership?” — the LLM (Large Language Model - e.g. ChatGPT, Perplexity) is drawing on previously published material. If you’ve been mentioned in enough credible places, there’s a chance you might show up in the answer.

This isn’t SEO - it’s GEO

We’re entering a new era called Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) .

GEO is the emerging practice of optimising your content, media presence, and brand signals so that you’re included, cited, or surfaced in responses generated by generative AI search tools like ChatGPT (with browsing), Perplexity, and Google’s Gemini.

If SEO is about getting found on Google, GEO is about getting mentioned by AI. It’s about supplying the type of structured, context-rich content that AI tools are designed to detect, understand, and include.

Let’s say you were interviewed on a podcast last year. That interview gets transcribed and quoted in a Substack newsletter, and linked on a community forum. That layered visibility increases the chances your name shows up in AI-generated answers about your area of expertise. You get surfaced, not because of an ad, but because of your authority footprint.

This is where reputation meets reach. And it’s happening now.

Generative AI search is changing how people discover experts and brands - instead of showing links, it delivers full answers based on trusted sources. This shift makes earned media even more valuable.

Real-world examples of earned AI visibility

Still wrapping your head around it? Here are a few everyday scenarios:

You’re featured in a trade article about leadership trends. That piece gets scraped into the training data of a generative model. Months later, your quote turns up in an AI-generated summary.
A client tags you in a Reddit thread saying you helped them solve a problem. Reddit is heavily crawled by LLMs. You just earned an AI trust signal.
You write a guest blog post on a respected industry site. That content becomes part of the model’s memory when people search for expert recommendations.
You give a talk at a virtual summit. The event organiser publishes a recap with key speaker takeaways, including yours, which gets shared in multiple industry Slack groups and ends up quoted in a blog post. That digital trail boosts your discoverability in AI-generated summaries.

The generative AI voices to follow

There’s a lot of noise around AI and PR right now, and I am by no means an expert in the space. But I note a few voices are starting to cut through with sharp, strategic, and practical insights. These people ‘get it’, and are well worth following …

Sarah Evans: Sarah is a leading public relations strategist and partner at Zen Media, known for advancing the integration of generative AI in PR practices. Through her Substack "PR@ctical," she shares executive-level insights on how AI and search transform brand visibility. If you’re interested in this topic, Sarah’s Substack is essential reading: https://prsarahevans.substack.com/ REQUIRED READING: “The new media glossary for generative PR” and “The new media tiers (and why tier 1 just got demoted)”

Andrew Bruce Smith: Based in the UK, Andrew is the chair of the CIPR’s AI in PR panel and a brilliant guide on embedding AI across comms workflows, from media monitoring to ethical usage. He’s well worth following on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewbrucesmith/ REQUIRED READING: This LinkedIn post summarising one of the speakers of an AI in PR Masterclass (excellent stats & info tidbits)

Christopher S. Penn: Christopher is a bit techy, but his frameworks are gold. If you want to learn how to generate prompts, structure data, and think like a machine without losing your humanity, he’s worth a follow: https://www.christopherspenn.com REQUIRED READING: "Generative AI Use Cases in PR"

And here are a couple of articles that have caught my eye that you might find interesting.

FURTHER READING:

Why Is AI Essential for PR Pros in 2025? - by Barbara Rozgonyi
How media and PR impact AI for your brand - by Lana Mini

Final thought

You don’t need to ‘game’ AI (although no doubt there are many short-cut merchants out there trying to!). You don’t need to chase virality.

You just need to focus on building meaningful visibility, the kind that’s earned, not bought. That’s how you build real authority and make yourself not just seen, but remembered, by people and by machines.

If your media mentions have been gathering dust, it’s time to dust them off and re-strategise.

The new earned media isn’t just about reach. It’s about reputation, relevance, and long-tail recognition in a world run by algorithms and fuelled by trust.

We’re just sauntering to the starting line - the race has only just begun, and it’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint!

Onwards!

~ Trevor

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Trevor Young – aka The PR Warrior - helps purpose-led business owners become clear and confident in how they leverage PR, content and digital communications for profit, impact and legacy. This article first appeared on 5 August 2025. You can follow Trevor on LinkedIn and on Substack .

Happy World PR Day: The Earned Revolution is Here

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 09:48:31 GMT

Starting my communications career in London’s West End eons ago, I remember many of the colourful characters who populated Wardour Street’s creative corridors. A particular standout was Charlie, an ‘old school PR man’ doing his life’s best work telling the good stories for some of the firm’s most prestigious clients.

As a former army officer, Charlie liked to see things done properly. Aside from some questionable “when I was on tour” stories over Friday lunchtime drinks, one of my favourite Charlie memories was the high precision creation of his end-of-quarter client coverage brag boards. Digital wasn’t a thing then (although we had a fax machine on our floor), so Charlie would meticulously cut and glue his press clippings to A3 sized black cardboard. Once finished, these looked as sharp as Charlie in his navy blazer and loafers, ready for a client lunch where he would show off the fruits of his labour.

In Charlie’s old school world, this reflected months of effort cultivating a wide network of senior business reporters at UK mastheads, many of whom he saw as friends. This network lifeline was always willing to take his call and listen to his well-curated pitch. The brag board was tangible proof, a receipt of earned goodwill credited to the client’s trust bank account over the course of that past quarter. Well done, Charlie, another bottle of burgundy if you please.

That was then and this is now, and the earned landscape has fundamentally changed.

The media pool that Charlie used to network is nowhere near as abundant as it once was, and neither are the client entertainment budgets sadly. Technology has flipped over more than once – case in point Facebook wasn’t a ‘thing’ back then (Mark Zuckerberg was only 14) so alas Charlie and I have not stayed in touch – and the ubiquity of AI now dominates all aspects of working life. However, if Charlie were still operating today, then I’d like to think he would be grinning from ear to ear as we see the star of earned storytelling on the rise again.

This is because Generative AI is eating Search’s lunch (although I know there’s plenty of talk of Google’s comeback, but for the sake of this story let’s not go there just yet…), and in this new information ecosystem most of us humans are choosing to get a synthetic readout from our favourite AI bot and going no further.

And where does our preferred AI friend get this information? Earned content, of course! Traditional media yes (the more prestigious the better), but also from industry advocates, NGOs, academia, creators, analysts, trade and good old local media. Why? Because Generative AI scrapes and weighs all these third-party, citation rich endorsements before synthesising them into compelling insights that most people accept as gospel.

Building this earned content ecosystem is communications’ job. Equally as important as cultivating external sources is tending to your own backyard – developing authoritative thought leadership and clear quotable insights from your leaders, maintaining consistent value-focused messaging across all content assets including press releases, blogs, and white papers, plus ensuring a well-curated and clearly structured website with comprehensive FAQs.

The extensive agenda I reference above must be prioritised by the communications team with one clear goal: making your owned media not just informative but also meaningful and easily digestible for Generative AI. It’s equally important to keep a diligent eye on what is being said about your brand within these non-static generative engines and be prepared to quickly correct misinformation with fact.

So, this World PR Day, with its themes of ‘building bridges’ and ‘navigating polarisation’, let’s reflect for a moment on the job to be done by an industry which has been hobbled in recent times and, frankly, has always done a lacklustre job of selling its value back to the business.

Gil Scott-Heron once said, “The revolution will not be televised,” but our revolution has the potential to be everywhere. For communications professionals, this means rolling up our sleeves, taking a deep breath and flexing those earned muscles as AI reveals our true value once more.

Time to dust off the loafers, Charlie, and don’t spare the UHU. You’re going to be busier than ever, because high-quality trust must still be earned.

Note: This article first appeared on Mumbrella

Crisis Prep 101: Making the Extraordinary Feel Routine

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 01:55:45 GMT

The business world now loves to declare that "uncertainty is the new normal." Fair enough, responding to pandemics, cyber-attacks, activist pressure and now tariff wars may feel for some like check box items on a weekly to-do list. But here's the real shift: crisis preparation is no longer a special project for the risk committee. It's simply what good businesses do every day.

Warren Buffett's timeless warning "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it" hasn't aged a minute. What has changed is the muscle memory inside companies. The smartest teams run regular scenario drills not because they expect to predict the next black-swan event, but because rehearsing decision-making under pressure sharpens judgment for whatever lands on the desk at any given moment.

A recent Economist article ("A manager's guide to handling crises - How to keep calm and carry on", 26 May 2025) laid out three essential touchstones: plan, decentralise, and prioritise. Planning is a given. Prioritisation is common sense, Lime's decision to keep bike manufacturing in-house during COVID serves as a crisp reminder of strategic focus paying off. Decentralisation, though, is where opinions diverge and corporate affairs leaders may raise their eyebrows.

Handing local teams more autonomy can feel like letting the brand's most precious asset wander off-leash. Yet rigid command-and-control structures carry their own risk: paralysis at the very moment speed matters most. The sweet spot is a framework that empowers on-the-ground experts while anchoring them to clear principles and pre-approved guardrails. In our increasingly decentralised world, you need to trust and empower your teams wherever you do business.

None of this is headline-grabbing stuff, which is exactly the point. Crisis readiness done right looks boring: regular tabletop exercises, living playbooks, and a culture comfortable asking "what if...?" without eye-rolling. It's business as usual, which means that when the unusual strikes, the response hopefully feels almost routine at best, and at worst no one is panicking.

The payoff isn't just averted disaster; it's reputational capital (also known as trust) that compounds over time. In a market where investors, regulators, and employees are quicker than ever to judge, that compound interest may be the best hedge a company can buy. After all, long-term business outcomes and reputational health are deeply intertwined and should never be considered in isolation.

The lesson for today's leaders? In an era of heightened volatility, the organisations that thrive will be those that make crisis preparation feel as natural as any other business discipline.

What's In a Name? The Story Behind indigo murphy

Sat, 31 May 2025 00:48:30 GMT

Since launching indigo murphy on 31 March this year (yes, it's our two-month anniversary today no less), the question I'm asked most often is: "why did you choose 'indigo murphy' as a name?"

The truth is, I wanted to build something that would stand out in a crowded market. Looking at the agencies I most admire - Burson, Ogilvy, Edelman (of course) - they all benefit from their founder-focused legacy. There's something powerful and truly accountable about putting your name behind your work, even if it sits uncomfortably with my natural introverted happy place.

Beyond the power of personal branding, I've always been fascinated by how the best company names carry both emotional and strategic weight, perhaps simply with the addition of a colour that evokes sentiment. Think BlackRock (sophistication, strength, authority), or Red Bull (energy, passion, excitement). These brands understand that a name isn't just a label; it's a promise, a feeling, a cultural connection that strengthens over time.

The blue period

So, speaking of colour, my instinct was to gravitate toward blue. It's dominated both my wardrobe and business thinking for years - a colour I associate with trust, depth, and reliability. But "Blue Murphy" presented some obvious challenges. The domain was taken, and frankly, it risked being mistaken for something far removed from senior business advisory services and more akin to an adult novelty store from the outskirts of Dublin.

Enter indigo

Then indigo emerged from the creative process, a deep, rich blue that throughout history has been associated with creativity, intuition, and wisdom. These are exactly the qualities I want clients to experience when working with indigo murphy.

But there's also something more visceral about the word itself.

Say it out loud.

Indigo! IN-DI-GO!

There's an almost onomatopoeic quality to it - like 'energy released' as you let your dog off the lead with a surge of determination to tackle complex challenges head-on (in my dog Freddy's case – see enclosed - it's to get to the frisbee in the surf before I do). This energy embodies what I want the business to represent: passionate, focused work that cuts through the noise to deliver real results with a bit of antipodean mongrel thrown in for good measure.

Beyond the name

Ultimately, the name indigo murphy isn't about me or the senior folk I work with. It's about the work. High-calibre, no-fluff outcomes that help solve real problems for real businesses.

Two words that serve as a commitment, designed for staying power in client conversations whilst evoking creativity, insight, wisdom, and of course a bit of mongrel.

Now that we've covered the 'why', it's time to focus on what really matters, and in true communications parlance, that's the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ behind the work we do and the challenges we help businesses navigate.

Curious about how we approach problem-solving? I'd be interested to hear about the challenges you're working through.

AI and the Decline of Critical Thinking: A Communications Leadership Imperative

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 05:07:57 GMT

AI is no longer emerging tech, it’s embedded in the day-to-day operations of modern business. From streamlining workflows to generating content at scale, its benefits are undeniable.

But there’s a growing signal amidst the noise: as adoption accelerates, our critical thinking skills may be quietly atrophying, with recent research by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University reinforcing this concern.

A 2025 survey of 319 knowledge workers and 936 real-world use cases of generative AI (GenAI) revealed a pattern: the more people relied on tools like Copilot or ChatGPT, the more likely they were to report a reduction in the cognitive effort they applied to tasks, and confidence in AI was inversely correlated with critical engagement, i.e. we get lazy, and worst, complacent.

This should concern us all, but especially communications leaders. After all, critical thinking is the cornerstone of trusted communication. It’s what allows us to interrogate a claim, challenge an assumption, and elevate ideas with originality and insight. When teams become passive recipients of AI outputs, we risk trading originality for speed, and nuance for efficiency.

So, what can be done? Here are five strategic actions communications leaders should consider:

Enhance AI literacy - Equip teams with a clear understanding of AI’s capabilities and limitations. Knowing when to trust it, and when to dig deeper, is the new literacy.
Promote active engagement - Encourage critical prompting, diverse sources, and the interrogation of AI-generated outputs. Treat AI as a collaborator, not a final authority.
Establish oversight protocols - Introduce review processes that assess not just content accuracy but alignment with brand values, tone, and strategic intent.
Foster a culture of critical thinking - Recognise and reward team members who challenge the status quo and improve upon AI-generated suggestions. Curiosity and challenge should be embedded in workflow.
Invest in continuous learning - Prioritise training that strengthens problem-solving, synthesis, and strategic judgment—skills AI can’t replicate, but which remain essential to brand trust.

Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft's Chief Communications Officer and a prolific champion of AI, regularly underscores the importance of integrating AI thoughtfully into our workflows. He advocates for breaking down processes into their atomic steps, identifying where AI can assist, and ensuring that human judgment remains central to our communications efforts.

Today’s communications leaders have a unique responsibility and opportunity to safeguard critical thinking as a core strategic function. Yes, AI removes friction. But it’s human-centered judgment that adds value. As communicators, we’re not just power users of AI. We’re stewards of critical thinking. And in this symphony of speed and substance, it's the human conductor who adds value and truly brings the orchestra to life.

Heretical Leadership, Tribes and the Power of Connection in a Fractured World

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 05:37:35 GMT

I recently revisited Seth Godin’s 2009 TED Talk on tribes (“ The tribes we lead ”), a presentation that predates the explosion of and then backlash on social media and the advent of generative AI, yet somehow feels even more relevant today.

Godin’s core premise is simple, but profound:

People want change. And they want to connect with others who share the same vision.

These like-minded individuals form what Godin calls tribes, groups of people united by shared ideas, values, or goals. And what every tribe needs is a leader. Not just a manager or spokesperson, but a heretic - someone bold enough to challenge the status quo and paint a compelling picture of what a better tomorrow could look like.

In today’s fractured world that is polarised, distracted, uncertain, this kind of leadership is desperately needed.

Why Tribes Matter More Than Ever

We are living in an era defined by disconnection. Trust in institutions is eroding, attention is splintered, and people are looking for more than transactional relationships—they want meaning.

Tribes offer that meaning. They offer connection, direction, and a sense of belonging. And with the right leadership, they become a powerful engine for change.

What Makes a Tribal Leader?

Godin argues that true leadership comes from those willing to speak up for something they believe in. These leaders:

Tell a compelling story about the future they want to create
Unite people around a shared purpose
Provide direction and a sense of momentum
Build cultures of curiosity, creativity, and courage

You don’t need mass charisma to be a tribal leader (that will come as you lead). You need clarity, conviction, and connection. Over time, these traits help build influence and trust—two of the most valuable currencies in our age of attention.

The Opportunity for Heretical Leadership

Heretical leaders aren’t reckless—they’re visionary. They understand that standing still is the real risk. They challenge outdated systems, ask uncomfortable questions, and gather people who are ready to build something better.

This is the opportunity today’s business and community leaders have in front of them:

To bring people together
To speak not just about what is, but what could be
To shape the future by leading tribes, not just teams

And here’s where marketing and communications leaders can make a meaningful impact: by identifying and supporting those courageous voices within their organisations who are ready to lead with purpose. It might feel uncomfortable—particularly in today’s environment and there may be stiff resistance to overcome, but doing so builds lasting trust, strengthens brand integrity, and positions leaders as expert voices of influence in their own right.

#TribalLeadership #SethGodin #VisionaryLeadership #PurposeDriven #StrategicComms #Storytelling #indigomurphy

Now Is the Time to Invest in Trust — Here’s What That Means for Communications Leaders

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 20:39:50 GMT

In times of volatility, organisations often default to caution: lowering their visibility, deferring big decisions, and pulling back from stakeholder engagement. But for experienced communicators, these moments present something else entirely—a unique opportunity to grow trust.

Like any undervalued asset, trust delivers the strongest returns when others are hesitating. And right now, trust is significantly undervalued. So how can communications leaders make the case for action in a risk-averse environment? What does it actually look like to invest in trust during times like these?

Here are five essential moves:

1. Prioritise Employee Trust
Internal sentiment directly shapes how your organisation is perceived externally. Your people are your most authentic and visible ambassadors. When they feel informed, engaged, and supported, the outside world takes notice. In short: trust starts from the inside.

2. Stay Relevant in Your Community
Pulling back from social impact or community involvement sends the wrong message. Continue to engage—consistently and credibly—on issues where your business has relevance and permission to lead. Trust is built through sustained, visible presence.

3. Broaden Your Definition of Influence
Traditional media may be harder to break through, but influence hasn’t disappeared—it’s just evolved. Customers, industry partners, expert creators, and niche opinion leaders all carry significant weight. Focus on the channels and voices that matter most to your stakeholders.

4. Own and Optimise Your Channels
In an era of growing misinformation, stakeholders are looking to multiple sources for verification. Your owned and partner-led platforms must be current, credible, and grounded in service. Treat them not just as broadcast channels, but as customer-facing trust assets.

5. Support Authentic Leadership
Your CEO’s voice matters—but only when it’s authentic, values-led, and clearly connected to the organisation’s purpose. Communications teams must play an active role in shaping how leaders show up: with credibility, humility, and a clear view on the business’s societal relevance.

We’re operating in a complex environment—and yes, it’s understandable that some leaders may want to “wait for stability.” But communicators know: trust isn’t built in calm seas. It’s earned when the waters are choppy and the world is watching.

Just like smart investors look for long-term value when markets are in flux, savvy organisations know this is the moment to grow their trust portfolio.

The question is: are you leaning in, or sitting this one out?