Plus: The SEC unveils new rules that may change the PR game; The Guardian’s editor-in-chief revisits the past to take on the present.
New data from Muck Rack shows journalism and earned media remain the core foundation of citations found on the likes of ChatGPT.
Overall, 99% of links cited by AI come from non-paid media.
At the same time, not all AI chatbots are the same. Much of ChatGPT’s information comes from Wikipedia. Claude tends to pull from PubMed Central. Gemini’s go-to source, meanwhile, is Reddit.
The biggest category contributing to AI information is journalism, which accounts for 27% of content found on AI platforms. A closer look shows that among journalism citations with known published dates, 57% were published within the last 12 months.
The second largest category is corporate blogs and content, accounting for 24%. What Muck Rack defines as aggregators/encyclopedia comes next, representing 17.4% of all citations measured in the report.
As Muck Rack’s report shows, some content isn’t moving the needle at all. Paid and advertorial content accounts for just 0.3% of all citations found on AI platforms. Press releases represent a mere 1.1%.
Why it matters:
As we’ve noted, GEO is making earned media hot again.
PR professionals have a new bounce in their step due to all the web traffic AI chatbots are generating for brands and business across multiple industries.
But that also means everyone is reading this data and pitching the same sources at the same media outlets. It’s harder than ever to stand out, even as the stakes get higher for PR professionals to deliver on the promise of GEO.
To succeed, PR pros need to be more targeted, strategic and thoughtful than ever before. Spray and pray won’t get you where you need to go. The practitioners who succeed in this environment are the ones who can truly act as partners to journalists in sharing compelling stories that service audiences — and LLMs.
Editor’s Top Reads:
- The Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a plan that would allow U.S. companies to issue earnings reports twice per year, in contrast to the current rule that requires one per quarter. While the reduced transparency would be optional — companies could continue to release official revenue numbers each quarter — the situation presents several risks and opportunities from a PR perspective. Would sharing less with the public, especially when sales are struggling, help the company maintain a good reputation? Or would pulling back on sharing the hard results invite suspicion and doubt? What one company decides to do, of course, also depends on how rivals in the same industry decide to approach the new ruling. It could also bolster the need for PR pros to help fill new holes in the news cycle that were once occupied by coverage of earnings reports.
- The Guardian updated its 40-year-old ad “Points of View,” featuring comedian Kathy Burke, for modern audiences. The original 30-second spot, which also included Burke, shows the same scene from three different angles, resulting in three entirely different stories. “It’s only when you get the whole picture, you can fully understand what’s going on,” the narrator explains. In an accompanying statement, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katharine Viner noted that while much has changed in four decades, the publication’s values “remain unchanged.” The Guardian, she stated, stands for “fearless independent journalism that holds the powerful to account and is open to all.” By revisiting an ad that helped define the Guardian for an older generation, the brand is conveying consistency in its mission. It signals authenticity, too. Another benefit to repositioning old content for today’s consumers is showing how a particular problem has only become worse, implying the antidote is more necessary than ever. Viner added in her letter that “Points of View,” when first released in 1986, demonstrated the danger of “misunderstanding when judging something from a narrow perspective.” In today’s highly divisive world, she continued, “that issue has only become more relevant.”
- New numbers from the Pew Research Center show 40% of U.S. adults get health and wellness information from podcasts or social media influencers. Among this group of consumers, 43% say the information these influencers provide is somewhat different from the information they get from healthcare providers. A troubling 18% indicate the advice is either very or extremely different compared to more traditional sources. As a growing number of people turn to social media seeking answers to their questions, healthcare brands have an opportunity to connect with an eager audience. The trick, of course, is to capture attention without sacrificing credibility. A degree of entertainment is required to stop people from scrolling to the next video, but a sense of authority is also necessary to convince consumers to believe what they’re seeing and hearing. Additional figures from Pew indicate most health and wellness influencers don’t describe themselves as some sort of healthcare professional in their profile. This lack of training and credentials gives clinics, hospitals and other legitimate businesses in the industry an opening to assert their tested expertise in a space flooded with misinformation — though they must also navigate growing distrust in experts.
Paul Hiebert is a reporter for PR Daily and Ragan.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
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