Sometime over the past year, the internet slipped into a new phase of online discovery. On the surface, pages and platforms remain familiar, but the logic that determines visibility has changed. Online discovery is now primarily mediated by AI, shaping which information is prioritized, summarized, or ignored.
This, of course, changes how authority, relevance and reach are built. Visibility is now determined by the black-box, artificial logic of the search (or more likely, the prompt) box itself rather than by a hierarchy of clicks. Wait too long to adapt, and your B2B brand is filtered out long before consideration begins.
The question of visibility is no longer a matter of gaming algorithms, either; it is an issue of establishing authority to ensure your brand appears when decision-makers search for solutions.
Let’s find out what that means for your B2B PR strategy in 2026:
When it comes to visibility, search engine optimization (SEO) has been the data-driven darling of digital discoverability for decades. Public relations, by contrast, became about telling stories and burnishing reputations: important, but not the front line of awareness-building. That’s all changing.
In 2025, AI upended SEO. Classic optimization tactics no longer drive web traffic due to AI-generated overviews hijacking prime real estate at the top of search engines, so that even a top-five organic position relegates you to the bottom of the page. As a result, 80% of users rely on AI-written overviews for at least 40% of their searches, reducing organic web traffic by 15% to 25%, according to Bain & Company.
And that’s if visitors even go to classic search engines at all. Google’s dominance is slipping: its search market share fell below 90% in late 2024 for the first time since 2015. At the same time, generative AI adoption among U.S. adults rose 10% over the previous year, according to an August 2025 survey by Harvard’s Project on Workforce.
So, how do you gain enough authority to show up in AI search results? PR plays a big role.
While traditional search results lean on volume of backlinks and page rankings, AI models rely heavily on third-party validation to determine whether a brand is trustworthy to cite as a source in their responses. These models look for cues that your brand's authority has been recognized by journalists across domains and highlights your specialized knowledge (not generic jargon). AI is no longer scanning for SEO keywords and link-outs; it’s scanning for credibility.
Here’s what that means for you.
In this new era, PR, research and communications have more influence on AI visibility than on-page SEO. That means classic PR is gaining some, well, visibility, as substance, unique perspectives and the authority of the public record experience a renaissance of sorts.
What does that look like in practice? Imagine a travel technology company with a unique, NDC-based retailing platform that consistently stood out at aviation conferences.
That industry presence never translated into SEO results, but when they worked with a PR firm to secure expert quotes in Skift, Phocuswire, and a handful of other reputable trade publications, Gemini and ChatGPT began listing them among industry leaders. Nothing about the travel tech company’s messaging or website had changed. What changed was the pattern of consistent third-party validation.
This purely hypothetical (but entirely believable) example points to a new reality.
If you have been investing in PR with discipline, you already have an advantage. The best time to get serious about PR was five years ago; the next best time is now.
PR is not the only channel that will improve your visibility. AI is hungry for proprietary industry research and reports with expert commentary. Commissioning research from a trustworthy firm pays dividends by establishing authority, increasing citations and piquing interest from external outlets.
Strong research is a strong foundation for brand authority. It gives AI models something concrete to work with and gives journalists material worth citing. Think of research as an asset that anchors your point of view, strengthens your relevance across industry conversations and creates a body of evidence that AI systems can recognize and reference over time.
First and foremost, your company’s leadership needs to understand that PR is not an accessory business function. It is central to visibility and brand awareness in an AI-driven search landscape.
Marketing, and PR in particular, should guide your approach to AI optimization for visibility. In a recent webinar, MuckRack surmised that 70% of what PR is already doing accomplishes this; it’s now a matter of packaging and framing to secure leadership buy-in.
Adopting an AI-visibility mindset also means rethinking how you measure impact. Mentions alone are not enough. You need visibility into how your brand is represented, the sentiment around those mentions and the accuracy of those citations. Build KPIs around AI visibility, such as AI-cited brand mentions, sentiment or share of voice within AI-generated answers. These signals will be critical as search behavior continues to change.
Though your strategy may need refinement, ultimately, the fundamentals have not changed. Good stories, a strong voice and credible insights have always been important. What has changed is the extent to which these qualities are essential for visibility. AI rewards clarity, specificity and expertise. It elevates content backed with evidence and supported by reputable third parties.
Create work that informs, share information that matters to your audiences and ground your perspectives in credible data. If your brand can supply that, you’ll set yourself up to be cited, visible and taken seriously.
Storytelling sits at the core of it all, and we believe it always will.