Earned media has played a key role in search engine optimization (SEO) since Google first emerged as a market leader back in 1999, but as AI-powered search continues to grow in both accuracy and popularity, the role of earned media is changing.
Just a few years ago, the secret to ranking high in the organic search rankings for a given keyword hinged more or less only on how many backlinks pointed to your website’s content. In this sense, earned media was a means to scoring more links in more publications and platforms, and for a time there, quantity arguably mattered more than quality.
Then the search algorithm matured to include an appreciation of the complexity of authority signals. Google learned to differentiate between keyword spam and quality links, between domains and articles that exist with the sole intention of gaming organic rankings and those that actually provide value to a human audience.
This gave rise to the popularity of “digital PR,” essentially using media relations tactics to secure especially high-authority brand mentions and backlinks. The idea is, if buying dozens of backlinks from low-tier blog publishers wasn’t making it easier for people to find your brand messaging, then landing a high-tier mention of your proprietary research, for example, would be more effective – both for impact on your website’s search rankings and for getting your brand’s expertise in front of the larger audiences that frequent these publications.
Now that AI has arrived in web search, marketers are wondering what this means for earned media. AI makes sense of content media differently from humans, and AI search engines have their own ways of measuring authority and interpreting brand reputation, affecting the way that AI-powered search ranks content.
Optimization for Volatile Times
Some marketing thought leaders are uncertain about whether AI search will drive out earned media and render PR efforts redundant. But others see this as a period of flux, rather than the death of a discipline.
“With the increasing adoption of AI tools like ChatGPT Search, DeepSeek, Google AI Overviews and other alternative search interfaces, the way people find content is evolving,” says Ben Jacobson, chief content officer at InboundJunction.
“How do you make sure that your web pages are included in AI answers? What kinds of signals do different types of media mentions and links send do these LLM-based algorithms? These are the fundamental questions that today’s earned media professionals are trying to answer with generative engine optimization (GEO), the next generation of SEO,” he adds. “It’s still too early to say that anyone has it all figured out, but PR is clearly rising in importance.”
If GEO is still in its infancy, then what’s the point of investing in it now? Why does it look like PR is growing in importance in the age of AI search? And is traditional organic search actually no longer a thing?
Is AI Truly Replacing Google?
It’s fair to say that there’s rising disenchantment with Google search. Consumers are fed up with search results screens that are cluttered with ads and sponsored results, which they see as undermining the authority of results. Google’s stranglehold on search has loosened, dropping from the 90% it has commanded for years.
But to say that AI has killed search is a major exaggeration. It would be more accurate to say that AI is augmenting traditional search across the board. Users increasingly prefer to receive a succinct answer written in natural language, which consolidates information that could otherwise be scattered across multiple sources. Younger audiences in particular appreciate AI tools like ChatGPT, which have seen use for search grow fivefold in just six months.
Google itself is adopting AI to drive its search results. In May 2024, it rolled out AI overviews in the US, which present a single summary response with web links for further exploration. Google also offers AI Mode, while Bing Copilot, which holds a 7.48% and growing share of the US search market, also provides AI search.
New AI search engines include DeepSeek, and Perplexity AI’s search engine, which maintains its own index and authority algorithms. Others seem like they might be in the business of simply repackaging organic Google search results in an AI chatbot interface. Research from Seer Interactive has found a strong correlation between content served up by AI answers and that which ranks well on traditional search engines.
“Just as consumers gradually shifted from traditional search engines to social media for certain types of information, they’re beginning to turn to AI platforms for answers about brands and industries,” says Paul Stollery, creative director and a co-founder at Hard Numbers. “Understanding this mechanism becomes increasingly vital for PR practitioners looking to maintain their effectiveness in an AI-enhanced landscape.”
The Search Landscape Has Changed
With the rise of AI search comes a change in the search process. Consumers aren’t following a linear path of search-website-conversion, and zero-click searches mean that you can’t always measure brand uplift by click-throughs. Search engine appearances aren’t always a signal for GEO success either, because AI-powered search can be more personalized and individualized.
At the same time, AI-influenced search uses different criteria to determine content worthiness for a given query. Some engines create their own web index, which draws on selected platforms and publishers that they deem authoritative. There are also signs that these AI engines prefer content that’s structured for easy AI-scanning, like FAQ answers with clear headings.
AI search pays attention to context and consistency when assessing brand reputation, giving mentions on social media platforms like Reddit and professional knowledge forums like LinkedIn the potential to be highly influential. If your brand appears repeatedly in association with particular concepts like innovation, reliability, or efficiency, this can boost AI’s perception of your brand’s worthiness.
This makes it important to consider AI in all your earned media strategies. “There will be a bigger focus on creating high-quality, informative content that can answer complex questions and provide more nuanced information,” says Gini Dietrich, CEO at Arment Dietrich, adding that PR “needs to adapt to new search formats, generative AI search, and interaction methods beyond the traditional keyword-based search box.”
For example, when PR teams compile pitch lists of publications to reach out to, it makes sense to first determine which ones are already optimized to be hospitable to AI’s crawlers, as opposed to others that might block these bots as a default. Also consider that formatting the content you publish for AI consumption likewise makes it more likely to feature in AI-generated summaries.
The Fundamentals Remain the Same
Both traditional search and AI search draw on the same content that’s across the internet. Although there’s some variance in the sources they rank as authoritative, the two search models share most of the same top data sources. That means that the more reputable the location, the more weight any platform will give it, whether it’s traditional search, AI search, or people sharing content on social media.
Many LLMs that power AI search are trained on SEO data from traditional search engines, which means that they still have a voice in AI search rankings.
“ChatGPT is an AI language model that draws information from a variety of sources that are present in Google Search too. Examples may include, but are not limited to, Wikipedia, news stories, interviews, books and scientific journals,” explains Nancy Marshall, a PR consultant and speaker. “AI isn’t just pulling information out of thin air; it comes from somewhere, and PR can shape the sources that lay the foundation for language models to do their job,” she adds.
All of which means that a solid earned media strategy still matters, and possibly more than before. This serves to shape brand reputation, which is the foundation for both AI and traditional search engines.
AI Search Is Hardly Killing PR
It’s true that AI search, with its new criteria for authority, is resetting the board for search rankings, but it’s not changing the rules of the PR game. Meaningful content in trusted locations has been essential for building brand presence for a long time, and it still reigns supreme. The tactics may have changed, but the PR strategy of quality content and meaningful relationships remain the same.
