Today’s topic is big and honestly, I think it’s kind of exciting. We are talking about why AI isn’t just a passing trend. Obviously we know it’s here to stay, but it’s fundamentally changing how people discover, how they find trust, and what brands and products they’re choosing to purchase.

So what does that mean for PR pros like us? And more importantly, how do we stay relevant? How do we remain trusted advisors and indispensable to our clients in this new AI-powered landscape?

I want to be real for a second. I have clients asking me different questions now than what they used to. If they used to ask, “How do I get on Oprah?”—I mean, that opportunity is long gone—but now I have clients literally say, “How do we show up in ChatGPT? Why are we not included in Perplexity when our competitors are?”

They are not looking for us to give them some fluff answer about how nobody really understands how AI works. Clients want real strategic answers. And this is our opportunity to lead, not to be reactive, not to be afraid like Chicken Little crying “the sky is falling.”

We’ve Survived Industry Panic Before

I’ve been doing this for 20 years, going on 21. And if I had a dollar for every time we all panicked that everything was changing—well, I’d have a couple bucks.

I think everybody freaked out about the move away from print publications to digital. And we all flipped out. “The media is dying! The media is dead!” It’s just different. Maybe that’s one dollar I would have.

And for sure with the popularity of social media—people’s attention focused on platforms like X and Instagram and TikTok—prospective clients were freaking out about what that means for their business. Maybe that’s my second dollar. So I’d have two dollars.

But there’s always some major flip out in our industry. Yes, AI is here. It is here to stay and it is fundamentally changing what we do as PR pros. But it’s actually a positive for us. And I’m going to tell you why.

The Shift We’re All Feeling

This ripple effect, this fear in the PR industry right now—maybe you’ve felt it. If you’ve ever had questions or wondered: Is PR becoming less relevant? Am I less relevant? Does media even matter anymore if nobody’s clicking? Do Google rankings of articles even matter? Is AI going to replace us?

You might have had one or all of these thoughts. And this uncertainty, we’ve all felt it. I have for sure felt it. It is very real.

I want to be honest. The very first time I realized AI was essentially synthesizing content instead of linking to it, I had kind of a mini crisis moment. I thought, wait—is it completely bypassing press? Is it going to sources that have nothing to do with the earned media and the authority that we’re building for our clients digitally online? Is what we do even going to matter anymore?

But once I started really digging deeper, something totally clicked.

AI Doesn’t Replace PR—It Rewards It

That’s the realization: AI doesn’t replace PR. It actually rewards it.

We create trusted sources of content through domain authority that AI is actually pulling from. We are building the digital signals that large language models (LLMs) cite in their answers.

What’s really causing all the chaos is that SEO, affiliate links, paid placements—all of these different strategies, this shiny object syndrome—they’re not automatically showing up in AI search results. Those synthesized answers where AI says “we’ve scoured the web and here is the best answer to your question”? The strategies that have been pulling our attention in PR aren’t the ones powering those results.

The difference here is that the new gatekeepers—Perplexity, Gemini, ChatGPT—they are pulling from authoritative articles, thought leadership, and consistent mentions from trusted sources.

And guess who specializes in all of that? You do. I do. We do. PR pros. This is what we do.

What’s exciting to me is this mindset shift that I’ve had. It makes me even more fired up about my business. AI hasn’t made PR irrelevant. It has made it essential. This isn’t the end of PR. This is a rebirth.

What Clients Actually Need From Us

Clients want us to be a guide. They want us to be an authority that supports them, not just provide a service that they’re asking for. They want to know why they’re not showing up in AI and why their competitors are—and what they can actually do about it.

They’re confused. They want to understand where consumers are getting their information and recommendations, and how they can be a part of that. How they can show up where their customers are actually looking for brands and products just like theirs.

Experts that are known for certain topics want to be referenced in ChatGPT and other AI model search results when somebody is asking for the thing that they are known for or want to be known for. They want to know: How do I show up when people are asking for the very thing that I know I can answer for them?

They’re turning to us—their publicist, their agency, their advisor—for answers.

Actionable Strategies to Get Started

I want to give you some actionable takeaways so that you feel more comfortable talking the talk and understanding how all of this works. I don’t want you to wait until you feel like a certified AI expert where you’ve taken a certification course and know all the ins and outs. Even by reading this right now, you’re learning how it works and how to be able to support clients.

Don’t wait until you feel like you understand everything. It’s evolving so quickly that even the programmers developing these platforms don’t 100% understand how rapidly it’s evolving. How are we ever gonna be those experts? It’s really just about getting as much information as you can and being one, two, three steps ahead of your clients.

1. Start Testing and Observing

Start now by testing and observing. I will go into ChatGPT or Perplexity and look for my clients to show up in search results. And if they don’t, what competitors are showing up? What are the citations? Where is AI pulling this information from?

Type things like “best clean skincare brands” or “top baby products for new moms” or “who is the founder of [company name]” so you understand what is showing up.

If your clients are showing up in these search results, that’s awesome. Screenshot that. That is real visibility. It’s measurable PR performance in the age of AI.

If they’re not, you can look at their competitors or whomever else is showing up and see where AI is pulling from. It’ll give you citations. It’ll let you know the sites it’s looking at to determine what is relevant to answer this question. Then you can start to target those media outlets. You can start crafting pitches that incorporate the language your customers might be searching for.

For example, I have a client that makes breast pumps. Keywords like “more milk and less time,” “higher yield without having to pump for so long,” “best electric breast pump,” “quiet,” “compact”—these keywords are important for defining what sets our client’s product apart. We’ve secured earned media features mentioning these key differentiators. And they’re starting to show up in AI answers when you ask those questions because AI knows customers are looking for these points of differentiation.

If your messaging is consistent—on the client website, in earned media, in anything that’s searchable, press releases, Wikipedia, thought leadership articles—the higher the domain authority, like a very high quality media outlet that’s trusted, the more it’s going to start to show up in the search results.

2. Educate Yourself and Stay on Top of It

Set aside literally 10 to 15 minutes a day—sometimes an hour or so a week—to read certain substacks, test different AI queries, see what’s showing up and what sites are being pulled from as sources. Then summarize those trends for clients so they understand not only what’s happening, but that you’re an authority they can trust and depend on to help usher them into this new era of AI.

I really like PRAIZE (P-R-A-I-Z-E), their newsletter and substack. Emma Grace Moon talks all about affiliate marketing, AI, PR, and how they all merge. It’s very aligned with how I teach it in our programs and how I support clients. The Perplexity citation breakdown is also really good—go there, ask a question, and see where it pulls from. It’ll give you the outlets they consider high domain authority so you can target those outlets.

There are also experts like Stephen Walker from Journey Further and Randy Fishkin. Look them up and see if that resonates with you—they are deep experts in AI.

3. Show Clients the Value

I recently sent one of our clients a really simple quick Loom video where I was walking through how they showed up in Google’s AI overview and explained how their Allure feature—that we secured for them not even recently, a while back—was being cited in Perplexity.

They were truly blown away, because that’s the value of earned media. We’ve always said it’s very cumulative and things start to gain traction. Now that’s even more the case because articles that might have been from a while back—if they were ever mentioned on social media, that’s long buried—but those articles still exist. And if they’re on high domain authority websites, they’re going to be on the radar of AI.

It doesn’t matter if it’s old. If it’s old and it has a lot of clicks and traction, that actually shows AI that it’s highly relevant. That’s not just PR anymore. That is an overall visibility strategy. And clients are willing to pay a premium for that.

4. Build Visual Case Studies

Keep screenshots of any AI-generated answer where your client shows up. If you know from the marketing team or calls with clients their goals and objectives—certain things they want to be known for—and you really understand how the way people are asking questions will impact those goals, do the searches.

If your client is showing up in results that support their goals for certain keywords—like “best clean beauty brand” or “products that help with sagging and wrinkles that are clean and made in the US”—that’s a big deal.

Take a screenshot, any AI-generated answer, any “best of” article, a trusted media roundup, and make a one-slide visual case study. Anyone in my Agency Accelerator program knows how much we talk about case studies because they are so important. It’s almost like: don’t tell someone, show them.

That is visual proof—showing what the client’s goals and objectives were, what your strategy was to help them achieve it, and that result you got with earned media that is now showing up in AI. Don’t make it crazy or fancy. It doesn’t have to be designed and knock your socks off. Just a document of what worked.

Use that for proof of your performance in monthly reports, include it in pitches for upcoming opportunities with future clients, or use it for thought leadership posts on LinkedIn. I want all of us as PR pros to be known as experts who understand how to support clients and brands in showing up in these results.

One of my Agency Accelerator students landed a quote in a Forbes Vetted roundup. A week later, ChatGPT pulled from that roundup when someone asked about a certain supplement—and they were included from that mention because it’s a high domain authority site. It’s showing up in AI results almost immediately.

That is AI-powered PR ROI. Screenshot that, get a case study, rinse and repeat so you have a bundle of these results that you can share. You’re not a one-trick pony.

5. Update Your Messaging

I’m currently working on this myself, really figuring out how to position myself. I can go on a podcast and talk about it, I can support our community with it on coaching calls. Love talking about it. But when it comes to my own agency website, I’m asking: where do I fit in with all this and how can I position our services and expertise to attract the ideal clients who really see the value in the work we’re doing?

You have to update your messaging because if you’re just talking about earned media and landing press and getting visibility, that is not enough. You need to start describing your work like this: “We help brands show up in the places that AI and real people trust—in media, expert roundups, and in the answers that people are already getting from ChatGPT and Perplexity.”

This is where you start to elevate from an implementer, from a mere service provider—somebody they come to and say “I want XYZ” and you’re like “okay, here we go, I’m a robot and I will do XYZ, pay me”—no. You are a strategic thinker, a strategic advisor, and you are guiding them into this new era as a trusted advisor.

Shift how you talk about PR. Get away from “we get you earned media coverage, we get you visibility.” Move to: “We help your brand earn visibility and trust in a world where AI answers are replacing traditional search.”

That’s it. That’s what brands are looking for.

This Is Our Moment

Jump in head first. Don’t be afraid of it. Look at this as an opportunity for us as PR pros to have the work we do continue to be extremely relevant—even more relevant now than it has been over the last few years when there were so many other opportunities competing for brands’ promotional dollars.

Earned media and high domain authority sites are extremely valuable. And that’s what we do. It goes back to those fundamentals of storytelling—the right story to the right outlet, the right person at the right outlet at the right time. All of those fundamentals, which we happen to teach in the Pitch Lab, are highly important and relevant skills that are not going anywhere.

AI is not killing PR. It’s actually really elevating the value of what we do. Clients need you and they need me to guide them through this change. PR pros who step into this now—not when it’s safe, not when they feel fully trained and certified and comfortable—the ones who jump in now, like you because you’re here reading this, we will lead the next era of brand discovery.

I was worried at first too, but now I see this as our moment to lead. And that really excites me.

The same placements that we’ve always prioritized—expert-driven, earned media in top outlets that position our clients as trustworthy—they are now the fuel that will power the AI results that show up when someone asks a question. Your client’s brand could be discovered.

This isn’t the death of PR. The sky isn’t falling. This is a rebirth of what we do. Earned media is the new currency of trust. And trust is the currency of AI.

Stop playing small. You’re not just a publicist. You’re the architect of how your clients are seen, how they’re discovered, and what citations are being pulled into the answers that are seen by your prospective customers—by humans and by the robots, by the AI machines.

This is what we do. And that hasn’t changed. It’s only become more relevant and important.

This is our moment. Own it.