Are you fluent in chatbot? Why you should be and why media matters

A new study from the creators of ChatGPT has pinpointed the professions most at risk of being replaced by AI.

With everyone from sales staff to software developers, and nurses to private investigators on the list, you’d be forgiven for thinking that PR might be there too.

After all, if a bot can write a court judgment (a leading judge made headlines when he admitted using the “jolly useful” tool to summarise an area of law that he wasn’t familiar with) then surely it can create convincing content, right? Wrong.

Another interesting study that caught my eye recently was from software company Muck Rack, which earlier this year analysed over a million links cited by AI in search results.

It found that the large language models tend to cite well known and generally trusted sources, the vast majority of which were from earned media – defined as non-paid publicity from a third-party source – with 27% coming from news sites, rising to half if the search requested recent information.

The evidence is clear: earned media coverage in respected outlets is one of the most powerful levers shaping how brands are represented by AI.

Generative Engine Optimisation

We’ve all heard of Search Engine Optimisation but there’s a new kid on the block – Generative Engine Optimisation or GEO for short. This is the process whereby brands optimise their content to gain visibility in AI-generated search results.

When it comes to what the likes of ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews look for, earned media ticks the most boxes including:

• Providing clear and accurate information that answers users’ queries without them having to look elsewhere
• EEAT – the principle by which Google assesses content quality based on experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness

At Black Letter, we pride ourselves on crafting high-quality content for our legal PR and litigation PR clients that lands them coverage in the titles they want to be seen in; for some that might be national press, for others it’s trade publications.

It’s good to see that Muck Rack’s research backs up our tried and tested approach, finding that an outlet’s authority has a strong effect on whether a story gets cited by AI with organisations like Reuters and the FT appearing frequently as well as the more niche, industry-specific titles.

Do you need a content audit?

The criticism most often levelled at chatbots in that the answers they provide aren’t always reliable. We’re told that they’re a work in progress, however, so it’s encouraging that they’re learning from the best quality content on the web. Does yours fall into that category?

As well as earned media, the million-plus links analysed by Muck Rack also included content such as that on your firm’s website, on social media, and in research papers or press releases.

Creating high-quality content should be a no-brainer, but it’s now a game-changer in getting your brand seen in the millions of searches that chatbots are used for daily.

Giving your content an audit is never a bad thing and with the rise of GEO there’s never been a better time.