Digital PR in the Age of AI Search

Author

Petra Venušová

Reading time

7 min

Date published

2025-10-16

Digital PR in the Age of AI Search

Digital PR is one of the key pillars of online marketing — and with the rise of AI-powered search, its importance continues to grow. In an environment shaped by LLM models and AI-driven search engines, the winners are the brands that are visible, trustworthy, and regularly referenced across media outlets, reviews, and authoritative websites. Today, no comprehensive GEO strategy can succeed without digital PR.

Why Digital PR Is Gaining Importance

While traditional SEO long relied on simple “link building,” the AI landscape calls for sophisticated digital PR. LLM tools and AI-driven search engines draw on sources they consider truly reliable and authoritative — namely brands, portals, and experts that appear in media and professional publications. The more frequently and credibly your brand is cited, the higher the chance it will become part of an AI-generated answer.

Practical tip: A feature in a respected media outlet can now carry as much weight for AI search visibility as a strong backlink once did for SEO.
💡 Brand mentions show the strongest correlation with visibility in AI Overviews.

Source: https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overview-brand-correlation/

E-E-A-T: Trustworthiness as a Fundamental Pillar

Both Google and LLM-based tools emphasize the principles of E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. They prioritize content that:

is created by authors with proven expertise,
is backed by original data, testing, or hands-on experience,
includes transparent sources and links to authoritative materials.

Practical tip: Always include the author’s name, bio, relevant experience, and original data (such as results from your own research or multimedia content).

Links Still Matter

Wikipedia Comes First

According to research, Wikipedia is the most frequently cited source in Google’s AI Overviews, and it accounts for 7.8% of all citations in ChatGPT. It is followed by Reddit (1.8%) and Forbes (1.1%).
💡 At Going.International, we help clients with strategic Wikipedia placements — always with a focus on quality and adherence to its encyclopedic principles.

Discussion Forums

Data show that LLM tools still draw from user-generated mentions (e.g., Reddit). However, in Google AI Overviews, Reddit no longer appears among the top 10 domains. This clearly shows that AI prefers authoritative sources over community forums or discussion boards. Still, organic mentions on such platforms remain valuable for both credibility and brand awareness.
💡 Community marketing strengthens not only SEO and GEO strategies but also the overall brand image.

Multimodal Content

Across LLMs, YouTube ranks among the most frequently cited platforms. Video content aligns perfectly with “how-to” style prompts and effectively complements written articles.
💡 Successful brands remember that the customer journey doesn’t end with a purchase — content should continue to support the customer during the post-purchase phase by solving problems and building long-term trust.

Review Articles

Reviews and comparison articles also carry significant weight. They provide comprehensive overviews and recommendations that AI models like to rely on.

💡 From our own experience, persistence truly pays off in digital PR. For our client Ahinsa shoes, we consistently worked to secure mentions in leading comparison articles. After several months of outreach and negotiation, we successfully achieved placement in the article “Best Barefoot Shoes” on the renowned comparison platform of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Such placement has a double impact: in addition to its strong marketing value and enhanced credibility, it significantly improves visibility in AI search results.

The F.A.Z. Kaufkompass comparison platform has over 1.9 million monthly organic visits and a Domain Rating of 90 (Ahrefs). Such placement therefore supports not only GEO strategies but also SEO performance.

In digital PR, we also care about tangible business impact. Within just the first three days after publication, dozens of new users visited the e-shop directly through the link on the F.A.Z. Kaufkompass portal.

Practical tip: Focus on acquiring links from sources that AI actually uses — Wikipedia, industry encyclopedias, review platforms, and reputable media outlets.

How AI Search Actually Works

AI search operates in two key stages. First, the system selects a limited set of sources it considers most relevant and trustworthy — this is the retrieval phase. Only from these sources does it then compose the final generation response. If your content doesn’t make it into that first stage, it has no chance of appearing in the final answer. This is precisely where digital PR, brand mentions, and the principles of E-E-A-T come into play — signals that help the model assess your content as valuable and worth including among the selected sources.

In the era of AI search, digital PR has become indispensable for brands. It’s no longer just about backlinks — it’s about building an authoritative and trustworthy presence across media, reviews, and key platforms. Only then can a brand make it into the set of sources that AI models draw from.