What is AI Search PR? (& Why Should Your Brand Invest?)

Your target audience now uses AI to make purchasing decisions. Whether it’s Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Claude or another of the (many) options out there, AI is now a crucial step in most buyer journeys.

Meaning? You need AI platforms to actively recommend your business as the solution to your prospects’ needs. Because if you’re not recommended, you’re losing out to your competitors. Fast.

But how you actually improve your AI search visibility (and get your brand recommended)?

In this blog, I’ll outline exactly what AI search PR is, how it differs to other search strategies, the types of tactics it includes and when you should consider investing in an AI Search PR agency. Let’s crack on.

It’s a type of PR designed to improve a brand’s AI visibility and earn positive, valuable AI recommendations for target searches.

You’ll probably see a few different names for it (here at Energy we prefer AI Search PR). But at its core, it’s an AI-focused digital PR strategy that drives business success in AI search.

Typically offered by PR agencies and PR professionals, it combines earned media with owned content development, AI search strategy and in-depth AI measurement/reporting – all tied together with the PR industry’s deep brand building expertise.

Because AI systems don’t rank pages like traditional search engines. They build an understanding of brands by analysing info across a range of sourses. News coverage, expert commentary, buying guides, reviews, company websites, social platforms. The more consistently a brand is associated with a topic across trusted sources, the more likely AI is to recognise (and recommend) that brand for relevant searches.

In fact, research from Muck Rack found that earned media is responsible for 84% of AI citations – influencing pretty much every AI response you’ve ever read. So the key to success to this new era of search is earned coverage from trustworthy media that positions your brand as an industry expert. And that’s exactly what AI search PR delivers.

AI search PR is focused on improving brand visibility in AI platforms. Digital PR is more focused on driving rankings and traffic in traditional search engines.

While there’s definite overlap in the tactics, they’re very different approaches. Where digital PR was traditionally more focused on earning backlinks, AI search PR instead prioritises relevant, contextual brand mentions. These mentions strengthen the relationship between your brand and the topics you want to be visible for, improving your authority in the eyes of AI and increasing the chance of your business being recommended.

Strategies like GEO and AEO typically focus on more technical tactics, while AI search PR prioritises more authority-driven, brand entity-led tactics.

Both approaches are valuable. There’s no doubting that GEO (or whatever you prefer to call it) is an important strategy in 2026. Particularly if you have key technical SEO issues that need fixing.

But in our opinion, the fact that AI models are designed around earned, authoritative third-party mentions makes AI search PR the more sustainable long-term approach.

A good AI search PR strategy should be fully tailored to your business, your audience, your sector and your goals. Here’s a few examples of the tactics agencies like us commonly use. But it really does depend on your individual context.

Understand how AI currently understands your brand: knowledge gap analysis, brand entity understanding analysis, prompt research, messaging consistency review

Earn authoritative third-party coverage: brand-led news stories, original research and studies, data-led digital PR campaigns, expert commentary, buying guides and roundups, reactive PR

Strengthen supporting evidence on owned channels: content gap analysis, query fan-out analysis, onsite content strategy, structured blog content, case studies

Measure visibility and report on results: prompt measurement, AI brand visibility reporting and analysis, brand sentiment tracking, competitor AI visibility analysis

I’d argue that in 2026, almost all organisations should be investing in their AI search performance. And therefore, almost all organisations should be investing in AI search PR. But that’s not a particularly useful insight, so here are some specific situations when investing in it should be a priority:

• Your website is ranking well in organic search, but you’re not particularly visible in AI search platforms for relevant, commercial prompts
• Your competitors are recommended by AI more often than your brand is – meaning you’re losing ground (and revenue)
• Your brand is described inaccurately or negatively in AI responses, and it’s impacting on your business

Top tip: When testing how visible your brand is in AI search, make sure you’re NOT logged in to the AI platform e.g. ChatGPT. These tools are massively personalised, so going incognito is the only way to ensure you’re not accidentally influencing the results (and conning yourself into thinking your brand is visible for every search!).

A PR or digital PR agency is usually the way to go. They offer the brand and earned media expertise you need to see quality results in AI search. You’ll find some call their offering slightly different things, but if you choose a good PR agency, the approach should be broadly similar.

However, I’d really recommend doing your due diligence during the research process. I’ve seen quite a few examples of agencies packaging up their (honestly pretty shoddy) link-building service and calling it a fancy new AI-related name. So keep an eye out for major red flags like a heavy focus on backlinks, guaranteed placement metrics or mass-produced, AI-generated content. Please steer clear from anyone that offers them.

AI search sits at the intersection of brand building, earned media and search performance. That’s exactly where we’ve spent the last 30 years helping B2B & B2C brands succeed – making us the ideal choice to help you succeed in this new era of search.

With three decades as one of the UK’s leading independent PR agencies, our understanding of earned media, owned media and brand is second to none. We’re constantly at the forefront of search and offer the necessary combination of PR experience and AI-led digital PR innovation to deliver the bespoke AI Search PR strategy you need.

Keen to find out more? We’re actually offering a (limited) number of free AI search visibility audits. If you’d like an audit or want to chat about how we could improve your brand’s AI performance, please get in touch at susannah@energypr.co.uk or via our contact form.