PR in 2025 isn't about journalists — it's about training AI to recommend your brand

PR in 2025 has a new objective that most founders haven't internalised: training AI engines to recommend your brand. ChatGPT now has 900 million weekly users. AI platforms generated 1.13 billion referral visits in June 2025 — a 357% increase from the previous year. AI traffic converts at 14.2% compared to Google's 2.8%. The brands appearing in AI answers are capturing demand that traditional search no longer delivers.

This isn't a future trend. It's the current reality. And earned media in authoritative publications is the most effective way to influence it.

Your Forbes Article Has Two Audiences: Humans and AI

Every piece of earned media you secure now serves two distinct audiences. The first is obvious: the human readers who see your coverage in USA Today, Wired, or Entrepreneur and form an impression of your brand. This is the traditional PR value proposition — credibility, trust, visibility.

The second audience is newer and arguably more important: the AI engines that crawl, index, and learn from that coverage. When ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews generate answers about your industry, they cite sources they trust. Forbes appears in the top 10 most-cited sources across all three major AI platforms.

This creates a compounding dynamic. Each editorial placement you earn doesn't just reach human readers today. It becomes training data that influences AI recommendations for months or years. One placement in Newsweek or The Independent is a credibility signal that compounds every time someone asks an AI about your category.

Note: Research from Semrush found that Forbes doubled its citation share in ChatGPT responses after September 2025. AI platforms are actively adjusting their source weighting toward established editorial outlets.

The Numbers Have Already Shifted

The shift from traditional search to AI search isn't speculative. The data is clear:

• ChatGPT has 900 million weekly users — more than double the 400 million from a year earlier
• AI traffic jumped from 0.02% of global traffic in 2024 to 0.15% in 2025 — a 7× increase
• AI Overviews grew from 6.5% of Google searches in January 2025 to over 50% by October
• 38% of business decision-makers have already allocated budget to AI Search Optimisation

The strategic implication: brands that ignore AI visibility are ceding ground to competitors who understand the new calculus. Gartner predicts traditional search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026. The discovery channel that built most B2B brands is being replaced by AI-generated answers.

The question isn't whether this affects your business. It's whether you're positioned to benefit from the shift or suffer from it.

Why Earned Media Is the Highest-Leverage AI Visibility Strategy

AI engines are trained to weight authoritative editorial sources over brand-owned content. This is a feature, not a bug. The entire value proposition of AI search is synthesising independent, credible sources rather than surfacing marketing copy.

The data bears this out. A study of 4 million AI citations found that syndicated press releases earn just 0.04% of AI search results. Company blogs rarely appear in AI answers for category queries. Brand-owned content is systematically devalued.

Earned media is different. When a Wired journalist covers your company, that coverage carries implicit validation: an editor approved it, a fact-checker reviewed it, and a publication with reputation at stake published it. AI engines recognise this trust hierarchy and weight accordingly.

The publications that matter most are those that AI engines cite frequently:

A single placement in a tier-1 outlet creates what we call a "three-asset placement": an SEO backlink, a human credibility signal, and an AI citation source. The third asset is new. Five years ago, a PR placement was a backlink and credibility. Today, it's also training data for AI systems that increasingly mediate brand discovery.

The PR Industry Hasn't Caught Up

Most PR agencies still operate on the old model: secure coverage, report impressions, invoice monthly. The AI visibility angle is rarely discussed. This creates an opportunity for founders who understand the new calculus.

The questions to ask any PR partner have changed:

• Which publications do they have relationships with that AI engines cite frequently?
• Do they understand the difference between earned editorial and brand-owned content in the AI context?
• Are they tracking AI citation patterns, or just traditional media metrics?
• Do they price on retainers regardless of results, or do they align incentives?

At Place & Pay, we focus on earned editorial coverage because it's the highest-leverage AI visibility move for most founders. You pay nothing until a placement is confirmed. 99% of clients we accept get placed, which is why we're selective about who we take on. The coverage you earn creates the three-asset framework: SEO, credibility, and AI citation.

What This Means for Founders

The strategic implications are straightforward:

Audit your AI visibility. Search for your brand and category in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Note which sources are cited. If competitors appear and you don't, you're losing ground.

Prioritise earned media over owned content. Your blog and press releases matter less than they used to. Editorial coverage in publications AI engines trust matters more.

Think in compounds, not campaigns. Each placement makes future AI citations more likely. AI engines weight brands that appear consistently in authoritative sources. One placement is an asset. A pattern of placements is a moat.

Move before the window closes. The brands building AI visibility now are establishing positions that will strengthen as AI search becomes the default. Gartner predicts 50% of traditional search volume will shift to AI by 2028. The brands that wait will find the path blocked by competitors who moved earlier.

The New PR Objective

PR in 2025 isn't about impressing journalists. It's about training AI engines to recognise your brand as authoritative, credible, and worth recommending.

Every earned media placement you secure does double duty: it reaches human readers today and trains AI systems for tomorrow. The founders who understand this are building defensible positions. Those who don't are ceding ground to competitors who do.

The old model — pay a retainer, hope for coverage, measure impressions — is obsolete. The new model is simpler: earn coverage in publications AI engines trust, pay only on results, and let the compounding effect build your AI visibility over time.

Book a call with Place & Pay to discuss whether your story is a fit for tier-1 editorial coverage. You pay nothing until placement is confirmed.

Sources

• "ChatGPT weekly active users have reached 900 million, more than double the 400 million from a year earlier" — DemandSage: ChatGPT Statistics (2026)
• "AI traffic jumped from just 0.02% in 2024 to 0.15% in 2025, a rise of more than seven times" — SE Ranking: AI Traffic in 2025
• "AI platforms generated 1.13 billion referral visits in June 2025, representing a 357% increase from June 2024" — Exposure Ninja: AI Search Statistics for 2026
• "AI Search traffic converts at 14.2% compared to Google's 2.8%" — Exposure Ninja: AI Search Statistics for 2026
• "38% of business decision-makers have allocated a budget to AI Search Optimisation" — Exposure Ninja: AI Search Statistics for 2026
• "Gartner predicts search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026" — Gartner Press Release
• "Forbes doubled its number of AI responses with a citation after September 2025" — Semrush: The Most-Cited Domains in AI
• "Syndicated press releases earn just 0.04% of AI citations" — ALM Corp: Press Releases Earn 0.04% of AI Citations
• "AI Overviews grew from 6.5% of queries in January to over 50% by October 2025" — The Digital Bloom: Google AI Overviews 2025