How PR shapes what AI overviews say about your brand

Ask ChatGPT about your industry. Does your brand show up? If not, that’s a PR problem.

Here’s something that might surprise you: AI doesn’t just repeat facts, but reflects the tone of how your brand is talked about online. If the conversation around your brand is positive, AI will echo that. If it’s negative, well… you can guess the rest.

LLMs like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, or Meta’s LLaMA are sophisticated AI systems trained on enormous amounts of online content. Think of them as incredibly well-read assistants that have absorbed millions of articles, blogs, social posts, and forum discussions.

When traditional search engines give you a list of websites to click through, LLMs generate direct answers by drawing from everything they’ve learned, creating responses that reflect the patterns, tone, and frequency of how topics are discussed across the web.

That’s why brand reputation is increasingly important!

Why your brand’s AI presence is important

We’re in a massive shift in how people find information. ChatGPT reached 100 million users faster than any consumer application in history, Google now includes AI Overviews in search results, and unlike traditional search that sends you to multiple websites, these AI tools serve up immediate answers.

If your brand isn’t part of the conversation that AI learns from, you simply don’t exist in those answers. Here’s briefly how it works:

Visibility: AI systems don’t browse your website to learn about you. They learn from patterns across news articles, blogs, forums, and social media. No mentions = no visibility.

Sentiment: LLMs examine how topics are discussed across multiple platforms. If negative content dominates the conversation about your brand, AI outputs will likely reflect that tone and vice versa – consistent positive coverage creates a positive AI narrative.

Authority: Your perfectly optimized website matters less than what trusted sources say about you. Earned media, such as news articles, interviews, and expert commentary, are more influential in AI Overviews than technical SEO elements.

How to influence what LLMs say about you

Just as you track traditional media coverage, you should monitor how AI talks about your brand. You can enter relevant industry queries into ChatGPT and other AI tools and see which brands appear in responses and how often.

But monitoring is just the start. Here’s how to actively shape your AI presence:

• Create content that LLMs can understand. AI systems love clear, factual information. When crafting press releases or content, use plain language and short paragraphs, specific data points (dates, prices, product names), bullet points for key information, and full context with definitions.
• Stay consistent across all channels. LLMs examine how topics are discussed across multiple platforms. If your brand’s messaging is inconsistent, the AI model won’t understand what your brand represents. Use the same key information, tone, and terminology across press releases, website content, social profiles, and interviews. This gives AI a clearer understanding of your brand’s identity.
• Build authority in trusted sources. A cloud infrastructure company that consistently appears in trade publications about digital transformation is far more likely to be cited when someone asks AI: “What are the best enterprise cloud migration solutions?” Why? Because AI references what it has learned from multiple trusted sources. Brands with strong thought leadership presence in authoritative publications become part of AI’s knowledge base.

In fact, AI systems draw content from the exact same sources as PR professionals have always prioritized – news, industry publications, and expert commentary.

In conclusion

PR is no longer just about getting coverage, but also about teaching AI who you are. The more consistently, credibly, and positively you are mentioned across trusted sources, the more likely AI is to recommend you.

If you want to impact how AI talks about you, start by auditing how your brand appears in AI searches today. Then focus on building relationships with publications that influence AI training data. And remember that most LLMs update their knowledge periodically, not in real-time, so consistent, long-term PR strategies are more effective than one-off campaigns.

PR experts who understand this shift now will have a significant advantage as AI becomes the primary way people discover and evaluate brands.

Also read: Is it true that LLMs prioritise established media and press releases?