How AEO Is Changing PR: My Public Relations Review Conversation

I recently joined Peter Woolfolk on the Public Relations Review Podcast to talk about Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO, and what it means for how brands get found. Thanks to Peter for having me on. AEO is the question I get asked most often right now, so I pulled together the parts most useful to any PR professional, CMO, or CEO. We have written before about why the coverage you earn now shapes AI visibility, and this conversation goes a layer deeper. Here are the highlights, edited lightly for length.

AEO vs SEO

Q: Let’s start by defining Answer Engine Optimization and how it compares to the newer search engines.

A: AEO is how you structure your content so AI notices it, so large language models like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude can read you and cite you as a source. Traditional SEO is about rankings: making sure you show up on the first page when someone Googles something. The big difference with AEO is the zero-click phenomenon. If I own a pizza restaurant and ask ChatGPT for the best point-of-sale system for a fast casual pizza place, it might hand me the top three options without my ever clicking a link. SEO still sends a customer clicking through to do their own research. AEO gives the answer directly. And that shift is exciting for PR, because the question changes from “How does Google find me?” to “How do I make AI trust me?”

Q: When you get a direct answer, does that mean these tools actually name the company someone is looking for?

A: Yes, and with a lot of these systems you can now buy directly inside ChatGPT. Ask for the best face cream for a skin condition and it gives you exact names, links, and a way to purchase right there. Which means if you’re not in those results, you essentially don’t exist. There’s no scrolling to page two to find you. To show up at all, you have to be one of the trusted few answers in that first response.

Why the Fundamentals of PR Are the Fundamentals of AEO

Q: So how do I form the verbiage that gets me picked up, and land in the top few answers it returns?

A: That is the golden question, and PR is a huge piece of the answer. My thesis for this whole topic is that the fundamentals of PR are essentially the fundamentals of AEO. Consistency, trust, credibility – those are the same things that matter, so you don’t need to be a technical expert to start. The test for any content, a quote or a blog post, is simple: does it answer a question, and can it stand alone as an answer? AI wants concise answers, a relevant stat, clear structure, and plain language instead of jargon. The habit that helps most is one we already use in PR. We work backward from the headline when we build a story. With AEO, you work backward from the prompt. If I represent a skincare brand, I would think through what a customer actually types, like best skincare for rosacea, then ask whether our quotes, our press releases, and our blog posts answer that prompt directly. And it isn’t only PR. Your website, blog, and social all have to answer those same questions.

How Do You Find Where AI Isn’t Citing You?

Q: As I listen, I keep thinking about my own podcast. What would I do to improve it and grow the audience?

A: Auditing is the place to start, and the key is to look at where you’re not showing up, not just where you are. Go into each platform – Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, even Grok, plus the Google AI overview – and see who appears when you don’t. Then find the sources. Where is that answer pulling from? Once you know the sources you’re missing, you can develop a strategy to earn coverage in those outlets. There are really two audits: how AI describes your brand, and whether AI finds you across the searches that matter. Plenty of tools will run this for you, but you can start for free by asking the questions yourself. One tip: podcasts are a big part of this. They’re long-form, the transcripts are easy for AI to read, and the repetition builds the kind of expertise these engines associate with a topic.

Why Earned Media and Trade Coverage Matter More Than Ever

Q: You spend your time making others discoverable. How does a PR firm make itself discoverable?

A: SEO doesn’t disappear because AEO showed up. If PR and SEO were cousins, PR and AEO are siblings, so don’t abandon your PR instincts. Make sure your website is optimized for AEO. Take the content on your site, drop it into an LLM, tell it you’re a PR agency trying to reach CMOs, and ask how to optimize the content for AEO and why. The fix might be as small as turning your blog subheads into questions and answering them. You can do the same with a press release. It doesn’t have to be a colossal strategy shift.

Q: What about specialized or trade publications, which don’t always get the attention the big outlets do?

A: Trade publications matter a lot here, and why trade coverage often beats chasing national headlines is something we explain to clients all the time. A marquee piece in the Wall Street Journal is great, but a small audience doesn’t mean LLMs ignore an outlet. They lean heavily on trusted vertical sources. We have a consumer product client that earns a high volume of coverage, including a lot of gift guides. Our AEO audit did show them appearing in LLMs, but on some prompts the cited sources were niche trade publications we hadn’t even built into the strategy. So AEO can hand you new avenues to chase, plus the evidence to show a client why an outlet they thought was too small is worth it.

Q: You’ve got me excited. Is there anything on AEO we haven’t covered?

A: I’d just add that the evidence keeps stacking up. Muck Rack recently put out a report on what AI is reading, and the stats show around 82% of AI citations come from earned media. So it isn’t just PR people saying PR matters. We’ve waited a long time for this kind of validation.

That’s what I keep coming back to. PR has always been hard to measure, and AEO finally draws a clear line between the coverage you earn and where your brand actually gets found. The work hasn’t changed: build authority, earn trust, and keep your owned and earned content aligned around the questions your customers ask. Do that consistently, and the AI platforms start treating you as one of the answers.

Thanks again to Peter for a great conversation. If you’re wondering where your brand turns up when a buyer asks AI about your category, that’s the kind of problem our media relations team works on every day.