How to improve your AIO through PR: the practical guide
In our last blog, we explained the difference between AIO and GEO and why both matter in a world where AI is reshaping how people search and discover businesses. If you haven’t read it yet, start there first. This piece provides you with the practical steps to get started.
So you’ve tested how your brand shows up in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overview. Maybe you appeared, maybe you didn’t appear at all. Either way, you’re asking the right question: what can I do about it?
The good news is that improving your AIO doesn’t require a complete overhaul of your marketing. It requires a smarter, more deliberate approach to PR — the kind that builds the external, earned reputation that AI systems are actively looking for when they decide who to talk about and what to say.
Here’s our practical guide to setting started.
Get into the publications that AI trusts
Not all coverage carries equal weight. AI systems place far greater authority on well-indexed, credible, high-traffic publications than on low-quality directories or obscure guest posts. A well-placed article in a respected trade publication or a quote in a national news outlet does two things simultaneously: it builds your reputation with human readers and sends a strong authority signal to AI systems.
Think about the publications that matter in your sector and make them a target. For tech businesses, that might be Wired UK, Tech Crunch, City A.M. or relevant trade titles. Consistent presence in the right places compounds over time. And AI notices.
Own a topic, not just a brand name
One of the clearest patterns in how AI systems build authority is topical depth. If your business has genuine expertise in a specific area, you need to build a suite of thought leadership content around it. Start with articles on your website and LinkedIn and then think about what would be of interest in external media. Bylined articles, expert commentary in journalists’ pieces, podcast appearances, panel contributions, award entries all create a pattern of association between your name and your specialism that AI systems learn to recognise and trust.
The businesses that show up most strongly in AI answers aren’t necessarily the biggest. They’re the ones that have been most consistent and most specific about what they stand for.
Make your spokespeople visible and quotable
A named, credible individual who is regularly quoted in the press, who maintains a strong LinkedIn presence and who has a clear and consistent point of view is a significant AIO asset. AI systems recognise people as well as brands, and a well-profiled founder or director who appears across multiple credible sources builds authority for the whole business.
If your leadership team isn’t yet using LinkedIn, that’s one of the highest-impact places to start. Remember, journalists use that channel to research their spokespeople!
Tell a consistent story everywhere
This one is easy to overlook but surprisingly important. If your website describes you differently from your LinkedIn, your press releases use different language from your award entries, and journalists have characterised you in contradictory ways over the years, AI systems struggle to form a coherent, confident picture of who you are. They default to vague or generic descriptions, which is exactly the AIO gap we described in the previous blog.
Audit your language. Agree on the words that define your business by creating a brand narrative that describes what you do, who you serve, what makes you different, consistently. This then serves as your guide to messaging across every channel and every piece of communications you put out.
Earned reputation is the output, strategy is the input
The temptation when facing a new challenge like AIO is to look for a quick technical fix. But as we set out in our last blog, AIO is fundamentally a reputation discipline. There’s no shortcut that bypasses the need for genuine, sustained, credible external presence.
The businesses that are best positioned in AI systems right now aren’t the ones that spotted a new algorithm trick. They’re the ones that have been doing good PR for years, building a credible brand footprint that the AI era happens to reward.
If you haven’t been, now is the time to start. The gap between those who have invested in earned reputation and those who haven’t is only going to widen.
Not sure where your brand currently stands? We’re offering a limited number of free 30-minute AI visibility audits to help businesses understand how they show up.
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