ChatGPT’s launch changed the world of marketing. It was not left alone for long and was swiftly followed by a raft of competitors including Gemini and Claude.

PR was “ripe for disruption” apparently. “Who needs to pay an agency to write bylines, press releases and more when AI can do it for you?. Early reporting by media titles would have us believe the entire creative industry would be replaced by a variety of new AI tools.

Thankfully, this hasn’t happened. 

Despite many, including agencies, opting to produce AI slop, bombarding publications with AI-written pitches supposedly personalised per journalist. Others can see AI copy won’t cut the mustard with respectable journalists and editors. There are already about 20 PRs to each journalist, but with AI we’re now fighting for email opens against an army of spammy AI agents. 

The good news for the real pros? They can’t make phone calls and can never meet journalists in person. 

It may be harder than ever to be noticed. Now, thanks to AI, it’s never been more valuable when you ARE noticed.

The click shift

PRs have always been challenged to tangibly link their efforts to lead generation. There’s a human in the loop making editorial decisions versus an ebook download giving you name, email and job role. 

Occasionally a lead references an article or broadcast opportunity as the source of where they first discovered a solution or brand. But too often it was more like finger-in-the-air attribution, based on increased web traffic or clicks that could be due to an earned media story published around a particular date.

However AI chatbots have revolutionised attribution. Traffic and clicks are no longer worth chasing. These Answer Engines are now how consumers and prospects find information. 

Why spend days trawling Google, sifting through various vendor websites, scouring review sites like G2 and Capterra, Gartner Magic Quadrants to create a shortlist of potential options when ChatGPT can do the research in seconds? Search has changed forever, so how you deliver the correct information to those prospects needs to.

Goodbye SEO (you won’t be missed). Hello AIO 

Answer Engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and others trawl and analyse data differently. Unlike SEO, keywords don’t matter and so “gaming the system” requires a new set of skills. In fact, old ways can hurt reputations. Stuffing your website with blogs answering every possible prospect query is obvious AI slop and is likely to be labelled as spam and so redacted from LLM citations.

In our experience, the most commonly cited sources by Answer Engines, after Wikipedia and Reddit, are company websites and earned media, or being referenced in credible real-world, non-slop, publications. This has to be a focus for B2B Tech marketers. Actually, our research shows the prominence of Wikipedia and Reddit reducing, while earned and owned media continue trending up.

Finally, traditional PR’s value is clear again. Earned media makes your offerings pop off. So much so, Gartner expects PR and earned media budgets to double by next year in direct response to AI search dominance. 

Changing agency models to meet AIO

B2B tech PRs have always helped translate complex technical products, protocols, methodologies into simple messages that prospects and journalists care about. Answer Engines value this exact process too…

Earned media may now finally be more valuable to businesses but the value of PR delivers is not just media coverage. Actual human buyers read earned media. Achieving this, demands experience and senior strategic guidance.

Rather than replace PR, AI Answer Engines have done quite the opposite – they’ve boosted its value. It’s been a long time coming. And, if Gartner says budgets need to double, who are we to argue…