How AI Is Changing PR, and What We're Doing About It
We've been asking ChatGPT some pretty ordinary shopping questions lately. Where can I buy an American-made sofa? What's a good sleeper sofa? What works in a small apartment?
Sabai, a furniture brand we've worked with for years, has been showing up in answers to many of those questions. And when we look at the sources ChatGPT references, we're seeing press coverage that Wolf PR secured.
What we love about this is that we pitched these stories because they were good opportunities for Sabai: product reviews, recommendations, and stories about what makes the brand different. AI wasn't even part of the conversation when some of that work began.
Now that coverage is showing up in a place where people are looking for advice about what to buy. I can’t think of something a brand would like more than that!
The industry has a name for this, GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization. Essentially, it's about whether and how a brand appears when someone asks an AI tool for a recommendation. LLM discoverability refers to being found in answers from tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
It's a brave new world, and no one really knows how it works. Also, it's changing month to month and even day to day. I don't think anyone can tell you exactly how to make that happen every time. But we can look at what's being cited, learn from it, and use that information when we're making PR decisions.
Building the PR Strategy Before the Collection Launch
Our Proprietary AI Discoverability Tool
At Wolf PR, we've developed our own proprietary tool to monitor and rank media outlets based on their relevance to LLM discoverability. We still care about a publication's reputation, audience, and editorial quality. Now we can look at other factors, including whether its content is accessible to AI crawlers and how widely it gets syndicated.
That matters when we're weighing opportunities for clients, especially when a placement requires sending an expensive product sample. A publication we might once have passed over could deserve another look. And that equals more opportunities for our clients, you love to see it!
We're also beginning to audit how clients appear in AI-generated product recommendations. We ask the kinds of questions a customer might ask, note which brands come up and what sources are cited, and plan to revisit the results over time. We want to see what changes, rather than assume we already know what works.
Taking Another Look at Press Releases
I have always said the press release is dead, and many journalists agree. Because of that we haven't used them much in recent years: targeted and personalized outreach has been our overall most successful approach.
But I'm reconsidering whether a press release might have a different job now. We're testing ways to make product information, from materials and certifications to dimensions and pricing, easy to find and consistent across sources. We don't know yet how much that will affect AI recommendations. It's worth finding out.
How we’re using AI inside Wolf PR
We've always been a small, senior-level team, and AI presents an opportunity to spend less time on work that doesn't require a senior publicist. Admin tasks like tracking coverage, updating reports, and managing samples all take time.
We've started using AI to automate some of that work.
Our press tracking and reporting process, for example, is now partially automated. This is a bonus in two ways: we have more time to pitch, identify editorial opportunities, develop stories, and work directly with journalists, and our clients benefit by having access to more up-to-date information about their coverage.
What We're Not Handing Over to AI
AI can help us identify and research media opportunities, but deciding which ones are right for our clients still requires an experienced publicist. We investigate publications, review journalists' work, and draw on our industry knowledge and editorial relationships to determine how best to approach each opportunity.
The same goes for pitching. AI might help with an initial draft, but our team still writes and edits the pitches that go out. Our understanding of the media, our relationships, and our ability to recognize a good story are central to the work we do. Those aren't things we're looking to automate.
Fifteen years into running Wolf PR, I still want us to be on the pioneering edge, not behind the ball chasing. This is one of the changes we're paying closest attention to.
Read more about how we’re thinking about the future of PR and Substacks here.
How we’re thinking about AI Wolf PR
We’re Looking for D2C and Design Brands
We are looking for amazing consumer focused/D2C and design brands to work with because, well, we’re really good at getting media placements for these kinds of companies. Our clients end up in top-tier titles, regularly.
If you know a brand that would benefit from our work we would love an introduction.