PR improves your AI search visibility when it gets independent publications to write about you. Those articles are what ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity cite when buyers ask about your category.
The catch is that most PR stops at the press release. AI tools, freelancers, and wire services can all send a release. Few of them can get a journalist to write about it.
Here’s how the options compare, and which one fits your company.
Takeaways
- AI engines cite earned media far more than company websites, so measure PR for AI search by the independent coverage it earns
- AI writing tools, freelancers, and wire services can produce and distribute releases, but none of them bring journalist relationships
- A PR firm suits companies with a marketing budget that can commit for six to 12 months and supply regular news
Contents
What kind of PR actually shows up in AI search?
Coverage in independent publications shows up in AI answers, and your own press releases mostly do not. AI engines draw heavily on earned media: articles, reviews, and reports written by third parties. A press release matters mainly as the tool that gets a journalist to write one of those articles.
A University of Toronto study of AI search found that earned media made up 93.5% of citations in ChatGPT’s answers about well-known brands and 95.1% for niche brands, with Claude at 87.3% and 86.3%. Perplexity and Gemini drew more on brand websites and social content, but earned media was still the majority on every engine tested. The study used consumer product categories.
Muck Rack’s May 2026 analysis of more than 25 million AI-cited links found that earned media accounted for 84% of citations, paid and advertorial content for 0.3%, and journalism alone for 27%. Releases on PR Newswire, Business Wire, and GlobeNewswire made up about 1% of citations in its December 2025 edition. We have written separately about why earned media outweighs owned content in AI answers. The rest of this guide is about how to earn it.
Can we write and pitch our own press releases?
You can, but most in-house attempts fail before any writing starts, at deciding what is newsworthy. Teams building a product tend to treat every update as news. Journalists do not, and a release with no news in it costs the company time and the reporter’s patience.
What counts as news depends on the company. For a large enterprise, an executive appointment can be enough. For a smaller company, the minimum is a new product, a new service, or a new feature that is attractive and clearly different from what competitors offer. Customer wins, funding rounds, market entries, partnerships, and original data also qualify. Founders and engineers who spend their days inside the product often cannot tell which of these will interest an outside reader, or which market to pitch first. Research-driven companies find this hardest, because science-to-business marketing asks them to explain their work to buyers and editors outside their field.
Many in-house teams also pitch the wrong journalists. In Muck Rack’s 2026 survey of nearly 900 journalists, 86% said at least some of their stories began with a PR pitch, but 88% immediately delete pitches that miss their beat. A team working from a scraped or purchased list sends many of those off-beat pitches without realizing it, because beats change and lists go stale.
What makes a press release worth covering?
A release gets covered when a journalist can see the story, the evidence, and a person to interview within the first few lines. Journalists in the 2026 survey named four things they look for in a pitch.
Journalists in the 2026 survey valued clear relevance to their beat (70%), interview access to relevant sources (58%), original data or research (40%), and high-resolution images (37%). Build each release around those four items:
- Put the news in the headline, stating what happened and when.
- Give evidence in the first paragraph, such as numbers, named customers, dates, or findings from your own data.
- Name an executive who is available for interviews that week.
- Attach images, charts, or a short fact sheet a reporter can use without asking.
A pitch email tailored to each journalist and sent one to one is what gets the release read, and 62% of journalists prefer to be pitched that way. We write press releases and pitch copy with editors who know both formats. Research organizations can also use dedicated scientific press release sites such as EurekAlert!.
Can AI tools write your press releases for you?
Well, technically, yes, sure. But not well, and certainly not at their default settings. An AI model asked to write a press release produces the average of every release it has seen, and many of those were written as marketing copy. The output reads as promotion, which is the first thing journalists discard.
We reviewed a series of releases that an AI app company had generated with its own AI. Each one was filled with sales-pitch language, ran the wrong length, and led with product claims instead of the news. None of these problems is a grammar error, so the releases looked finished to the team that produced them. A journalist would have read them as sales emails.
AI can help a trained writer draft, check facts against source documents, and adapt a release for different outlets faster. It cannot decide what the story is, which facts a reporter needs first, or how a release for a trade publication should differ from one for a business daily.
Should you hire a PR freelancer on Upwork or Fiverr?
A freelancer can fix the language of a release, but fluent English is a different skill from writing news, and neither buys journalist relationships. Platforms like Upwork and Fiverr price work per deliverable, which suits a one-off writing job and little else in PR.
The same AI app company later hired a freelancer who wrote fluent English. The new releases swapped the AI’s sales language for human clichés. An untrained reader might have accepted them, but they still did not read as news and would not have survived a reporter’s first skim.
Few freelancers have working contacts at outlets in more than one country, and fewer still can pitch in Bahasa Indonesia, Thai, or Vietnamese. A company entering several markets usually ends up with one writer working in one language, and nobody following up with editors after the release goes out.
Do PR software and wire services get you coverage?
They get your release distributed and help you find contacts, but they do not get it written about. Wire services publish releases on partner news sites and aggregators, and media databases tell you who covers your topic. Both are useful in trained hands, and neither replaces a journalist’s decision to write a story.
The common tools fall into three groups:
- Muck Rack, Cision, Meltwater, and Prowly are media databases for finding journalists, tracking beats, and monitoring coverage, and Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse also tracks AI citations.
- PR Newswire, Business Wire, and GlobeNewswire are wire services that place releases on partner sites and financial news terminals.
- AI-driven release apps write and send releases automatically, and their results depend entirely on the distribution list and the quality of the release.
Mass syndication can also cost you search visibility. Google’s spam policies classify optimized anchor-text links in press releases distributed on other sites as link spam, so a release pushed to hundreds of aggregators with keyword-rich links can hurt your standing in Google. Google’s index is also one of the sources AI Overviews draw from.
Are all PR firms equally effective for AI search?
No. Some firms rely on automated distribution to sites they know will publish whatever they receive. Those sites often have low domain rating (DR) or domain authority (DA) and high spam scores, and some are private blog networks (PBNs, artificially created blogs just for the purpose of creating backlinks at high volume, and not something Google’s fond of). The placements are easy to report as coverage, but they fall outside the media tiers PR professionals recognize, and Google and AI engines give them little weight.
A relationship-driven firm pitches journalists its people already know. They have built trust with editors and producers over years by sending scoops and stories that proved newsworthy, and those relationships now span online publications, newspapers, TV, podcasts, and social media creators. Those relationships turn a release into an interview request.
Before signing with any firm, ask for:
- A coverage list from the past year, with outlet names, dates, and links
- The DR or DA of each outlet, and which are tier-1 national or regional titles
- The journalists and producers the team works with directly in your target markets
- The people who write and pitch in each local language, and whether they are in-house
| Option | What it does well | Where it falls short for AI search |
| DIY in-house | Low cost; the team knows the product | Weak newsworthiness judgment; stale media lists; few relationships |
| AI writing tools | Fast drafts | Default output reads as sales copy; no distribution or relationships |
| Freelancers (Upwork, Fiverr) | Fluent writing per deliverable | Rarely know the press release format; contacts in one market at most |
| PR software and wires | Distribution at scale; contact databases | Distribution rarely becomes coverage; wires earn about 1% of AI citations |
| Automated-distribution firms | Fast, reportable placements | Low-DR, high-spam sites carry little weight with Google or AI engines |
| Relationship-driven PR firms | Journalist relationships across markets; full workflow from angle to follow-up | Needs a marketing budget and a six- to 12-month commitment |
Which PR path fits your company?
The right path depends on your budget, how often you have news, and how many markets you are entering. Paying for more PR than your news can support wastes money as surely as doing too little. Find your company type below.
Solopreneur
What you can do now
- Write one release per milestone, such as a launch, a first named customer, or a major feature, and have a professional editor review it before it goes out.
What resources you need
- A few hours per milestone, plus a small budget for professional editing of each release.
- A founder bio, a headshot, and a one-page fact sheet ready to send the same day a journalist asks.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- A PR firm retainer, because your news flow cannot keep it supplied.
- Paid wire distribution for every update, or AI-generated releases sent without a human review.
Small team, single product
What you can do now
- Plan PR around your product roadmap: launches, major versions, integrations, and customer results.
- Hire a professional writer for each launch release, and pitch the trade press in your home market first.
- Collect customer results as they happen, with permission to name the customer, so each launch has evidence behind it.
What resources you need
- One team member who owns PR part-time and keeps the media list current.
- A writing budget per launch and free monitoring such as Google Alerts for your brand and category.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- A retainer that runs between launches with nothing to announce.
- Pitching tier-1 business press with feature updates, or launching in several countries before you have coverage at home.
Bootstrapped startup
What you can do now
- Pay for professional writing on each milestone, and build the founder story journalists will ask about.
- Look for publishable data in your product usage, anonymized and aggregated, which can become a small report later.
- Set up an AI visibility baseline now, with a fixed set of buyer prompts, so you can measure change once PR scales.
What resources you need
- A PR line in your budget, even a small one, tied to milestones.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- A retainer before revenue can support six months, because a program cut off at two months loses most of what it built.
- Paying for placements on sites that publish anything they receive.
SME in one market
What you can do now
- Run project-based PR around a specific launch, expansion, event, or anniversary.
- Enter industry awards, put executives forward for speaking slots at trade events, and issue a release for every notable customer win.
- Move to a retainer once you have news at least monthly.
What resources you need
- A marketing budget with a PR line, and one executive willing to act as spokesperson.
- An approval process that clears media responses within two days.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- Doing PR only when sales slow down.
- Expecting lasting AI visibility from a single campaign.
Funded startup
What you can do now
- Retain a PR firm for six to 12 months, starting before your funding announcement so the firm can plan it.
- Build a news calendar covering funding, market entry, senior hires, partnerships, and a data report.
What resources you need
- A PR budget written into the funding plan.
- A PR coordinator who answers queries within 24 hours, spokespeople available at about 48 hours’ notice, and product or market metrics you are willing to publish.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- Pitching your funding news to tier-1 outlets yourself, since you usually get one chance with each journalist.
- Relying on freelancers or automated-distribution firms for a multi-market launch.
Growth-stage company with steady revenue
What you can do now
- Keep a continuing retainer and add thought leadership: bylined articles, executive profiles, and expert commentary on industry news.
- Publish an annual data report from your own customer or market data.
- Plan award entries and speaking slots a year ahead.
What resources you need
- An internal owner who sends the firm news every month.
- Executive time for interviews, and a data or analytics team that can produce findings a newsroom will use.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- Measuring PR purely as cost per article.
- Pausing the program in quiet months, when thought leadership and data can fill the gap.
Single-office company with 100+ employees
What you can do now
- Appoint an in-house communications lead to gather news from across the company and manage approvals.
- Retain a firm for media relations in your target markets, and train more spokespeople, including technical leaders.
What resources you need
- A dedicated communications lead working with the firm.
- A written approval policy that names who can sign off on quotes and how fast.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- Leaving PR to marketing generalists as a side task.
- Routing every quote through several layers of management before it reaches a journalist.
Multi-branch company
What you can do now
- Work with a firm that has teams across your markets, under one core story with a local angle for each: jobs and investment in the Philippines, product features in Singapore.
- Issue releases in local languages, and name a spokesperson at each branch.
What resources you need
- Localization capacity and a central approval process that gives branches room to respond quickly.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- Translating the head office release word for word for every market.
- Hiring separate agencies in each country with no coordination between them.
Multinational corporation
What you can do now
- Let corporate communications set the global narrative, and use a regional firm for Asian and European newsroom relationships and local languages.
- Track AI visibility by market and language, since AI engines differ in cross-language stability and give different answers in different languages.
What resources you need
- AI visibility tracking set up for each language you sell in.
What’s (probably) not a good idea for you right now
- Assuming global English-language coverage reaches ASEAN audiences.
- Sending every local media comment back to global headquarters for approval.
PR firms suit companies that have a set marketing budget, commit to a program, and judge it on results that build over months. Companies that want to test PR for a few weeks, or measure it purely as cost per article, usually end the engagement just as coverage starts to accumulate.
What does a PR firm like Ellerton do that the other options can’t?
A firm like Ellerton & Co. runs the whole chain: finding the angle, writing the release, choosing outlets, pitching through existing relationships, following up, and preparing your spokespeople. Every link in that chain affects the result, and the relationships at the pitching stage are the part no software or freelancer supplies.
Ellerton & Co. is our partner firm for outbound PR. It is headquartered in Singapore, with agency teams in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, India, and Japan, and partner agencies in Europe, the US, and the Middle East, and it has placed more than 20,000 news articles for over 300 brands. Together, our science and technology PR service combines Ellerton’s media network with our English technical content and AI search strategy.
Several engagements show the approach:
- Over a six-year partnership with Advance Intelligence Group, Ellerton secured more than 300 pieces of earned coverage across Southeast Asia, including a founder profile in The Straits Times’ Lunch with Sumiko interview.
- Multipolitan’s embargoed launch of its 2025 crypto report drew over 1 million views on the first day and 70 pieces of coverage, including CNBC and the South China Morning Post.
- Ellerton built media coverage around Nebius’ GITEX Asia sponsorship and Southeast Asian market entry. The AI infrastructure company’s enterprise value rose from USD 2.61 billion to USD 16.23 billion between March and August 2025, during the engagement.
- BDx Data Centers earned coverage in Reuters and CNBC, along with several global and APAC industry awards, through press releases, pitching, award nominations, and speaking slots.
- We have worked with Sansan, the Japanese business software company, on English for its product UI, marketing, and PR, and Sansan has worked with Ellerton since 2019 on PR across Singapore and ASEAN.
- We are now starting work with Ellerton to expand a major academic AI platform’s presence across Southeast Asia.
Ellerton also prepares clients for the coverage it wins. It coordinates with the journalist, collects the questions in advance, drafts answers when needed, and briefs executives on what a particular reporter tends to ask. For executives new to interviews, it provides media training, which for podcasts and TV extends to how to sit, dress, and speak on camera. To see how this would work for your company, request a free PR audit.
What does our company need to commit to for PR to work?
Plan for at least six months and preferably 12. Name a PR coordinator who answers every query from the firm or the media within 24 hours, and line up spokespeople in suitable roles, such as the CEO, a product head, or a lead researcher, who can be available at about 48 hours’ notice. Journalist interest builds with repeated contact, and a firm needs that time and responsiveness, plus a steady supply of news, to turn interest into coverage.
One-off campaigns for a single event can work, but without an existing relationship behind them they tend to underperform unless the event itself is major news or features well-known names. A reporter on deadline may need a comment the same day, so approvals should not have to travel back through a head office or be translated in both directions before anyone can answer.
Issue a release every time something happens: a customer win, a new feature, a launch, a partnership, or a senior hire. Each one gives the firm another chance to earn third-party mentions, which are what AI engines draw on. Proprietary data and reports help even more, because a firm can pick out the findings most likely to interest a newsroom. Hold regular meetings with your firm as well, since they often surface new angles and new voices inside your company. Clear positioning makes all of this easier, because a well-defined brand gets mentioned more often in independent media.
How does PR change from ASEAN to Japan, Korea, and Europe?
The story that interests a journalist depends on what the country needs. Media in developing ASEAN markets wants to know what your company brings to the country, while media in advanced economies wants to know what your product does for readers’ lives and work. Language requirements shift from market to market too.
Media in the Philippines, for example, pays close attention to investment, jobs, and positive international attention for the country, along with ties to government agencies and universities. Singapore is ASEAN’s most advanced economy, and its media interests sit closer to those of Japan, South Korea, and Europe, where outlets focus on product features and what they change for people. In the 2026 journalist survey, 78% of respondents said a pitch feels relevant when it directly affects their audience’s community.
| Market | What the media looks for | Working language |
| Philippines | Jobs, investment, national development | English |
| India | Market growth, investment, local partnerships | English |
| Malaysia | Investment and local impact | English and Malay |
| Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam | Local impact, government and institutional ties | Local language preferred |
| Singapore | Product features, regional leadership | English |
| Japan, South Korea, Europe | Product features and how they improve daily life or work | Local language |
Ellerton’s teams pitch in these languages across Southeast Asia and India, so a company entering several markets does not need a separate agency in each.
How do we measure whether PR is improving our AI search visibility?
Your company measures AI visibility, and the PR firm measures its deliverables. The firm cannot see your pipeline, and you cannot judge outlet quality without the firm’s reporting, so each side tracks what it controls.
On the company side, write a fixed set of prompts your buyers would ask, such as “best B2B data platforms in Southeast Asia,” and run them each month in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude. Record whether your brand appears, how it is described, and which sources the engines cite. HubSpot calculates AI share of voice as your brand citations divided by total citations, multiplied by 100, and recommends a monthly review as the minimum cadence. Tools like HubSpot AEO, Ahrefs Brand Radar, and Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse automate these checks. In Google Analytics, track referral traffic from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai.
Add “How did you find us?” to every contact form and first sales call. It costs nothing, and when a new lead says they found you through an AI assistant, you have direct evidence the program is working. We can set up this tracking alongside a PR program as part of our AI search optimization service.
On the firm’s side, expect regular reports on releases issued, content produced, pitches sent, interviews secured, and coverage earned, with each outlet’s tier and DR or DA. A good firm also reports opportunities it has spotted, such as speaking slots and trending topics your executives could comment on.
Frequently asked questions about PR and AI search
How long does it take for PR to show up in AI search results?
Plan for at least six months of steady coverage before judging results. Individual articles can be cited quickly, and Muck Rack found that content published yesterday received the most citations for time-sensitive queries. Consistent visibility across many prompts takes a continuing flow of coverage.
Is a press release on a wire service enough to get cited by AI?
Rarely. Releases on the major wires made up about 1% of AI citations in Muck Rack’s December 2025 data. A release does its job when a journalist uses it to write an independent story.
Do we need a separate PR agency in every country?
Not if the firm has its own teams across your markets. Ellerton runs agency teams in eight Asian markets, including India and Japan, and works with partner agencies in Europe, the US, and the Middle East.
Is a PR firm right for an early-stage startup?
Usually not. Firm-led programs suit funded or established companies that can commit to six to 12 months and have regular news to share. Earlier-stage companies get more from professional writing for each milestone and a clear, well-positioned website.
If your company is funded and planning to expand across ASEAN, East Asia, or Europe, tell us which markets you are targeting and what news you have coming up. Use our contact form, and we will review your current coverage and suggest where to start.
