Treat AI as another channel at your peril
The real question facing PR is not how quickly we can master AI visibility but whether we are willing to break a decades-long cycle and finally use the tools at our disposal to do something far more valuable.
There’s a pattern in public relations I’ve seen play out over nearly four decades, and once you see it, it’s hard to ignore.
Every time a new wave of media or technology emerges, we rush toward it. We learn its mechanics, optimise for its algorithms, and shape our messages to fit its format. We get very good at working the medium and the channel.
But, in doing so, we narrow our relevance. We saw it with mass media, where the perceived value we offer became synonymous with coverage. We saw it with the internet, where visibility and search became the game.
Then social media arrived, and we reorganised around platforms, our content cadence, influencer approach and engagement metrics. Each time, the same pattern: an over-focus on channels, and an under-focus on the reputation pillars that matter to your business and how to influence these at an executive and board level.
Once again, as AI reshapes the communication landscape, the industry is moving quickly toward GEO and AI visibility. If we’re not careful, AI will simply become the next channel we optimise for - another medium that traps us in a cycle of shaping messages for distribution rather than shaping the decisions that truly matter to reputation.
