In my work at Hotwire, I increasingly sit at the intersection of communications, marketing and AI. I’m constantly talking and working with professionals and experts across these disciplines, and one thing I’ve noticed over the past few years is how much more cautious many comms professionals are about new technology than their marketing peers.
The reasons aren’t hard to understand. At its core, communication is as much about promoting as it is about protecting brands and reputation.
Also, unlike many marketing areas, much of the work is still based on craft and relationships, areas where humans excel.
But generative AI is a technology unlike any other, and is creating one of the most significant opportunities the industry has seen in decades.
The Shift That Changes Everything
When someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini about an industry or product, they crawl media coverage, blog posts, thought leadership articles, and company websites to synthesise what they find and serve up a conversational response.
Sometimes they invent things, the infamous hallucinations. But most of the time, they’re pulling from real sources across the internet, much like Google does when suggesting links.The difference is that they’re selecting and reshaping that information into an answer, and most users never click through to verify the sources.
They are determining what most of us using AI search see, and they often make those decisions based on the material PR helps to create.
Why This Is PR’s Moment
For a long time, PR has had to justify its value in a landscape dominated by digital marketing metrics. AI search changes this dynamic.
The media placements, expert commentary, and thought leadership that form the core of many PR campaigns are what AI relies on to generate answers.
AI search also makes brand narrative – another area of PR expertise – even more critical, as it uses it to talk about categories or make recommendations.
The shift allows campaigns to become more data-centric and to elevate PR in the strategic game.
What We’re Learning
At Hotwire, we’ve been developing tools and methodologies to help brands understand and optimize their presence in AI search for almost two years. We have seen several patterns emerge.
AI visibility doesn’t follow the same rules as traditional search. We’ve worked with brands that have strong SEO rankings but are consistently ignored in AI responses. AI systems also develop preferences for certain sources, such as media outlets, industry analysts, or academic institutions. This isn’t necessarily about size or reach, but more about perceived authority and readability.
Accessibility is essential. If AI crawlers can’t reach the content, it might as well not exist.
Success in AI search requires a combination of PR expertise and technical understanding. The strategic work — what story to tell, to which outlets, how to position the brand — remains firmly in PR’s domain. But optimising for AI also involves technical elements that require collaboration with AI experts and web teams.
Where the Opportunity Lives
For in-house communications teams, AI search represents a critical opportunity. It provides a new framework for demonstrating value. Rather than just focusing on the ROI of a media placement or thought leadership, you can show executives exactly how often your brand appears in AI-generated answers compared to competitors, track changes over time, and correlate that visibility with business metrics.
It also creates an opportunity to own a critical new channel before it becomes crowded. Right now, most brands haven’t figured out AI search. Companies that move quickly can establish positions that become increasingly difficult for competitors to overcome.
Additionally, it positions PR at the center of cross-functional collaboration. Optimizing for AI search requires the strategic expertise that lives in communications teams, combined with technical capabilities from experts in AI, data and web building.
The Path Forward
The companies and professionals advancing share several characteristics. They recognize that this shift is happening now. They understand that their current metrics don’t tell them anything about their AI visibility. They’re willing to adapt their approach based on what’s actually working.
Most importantly, they see this as an opportunity rather than a threat. The skills that make great communications professionals valuable become more important in a world where AI systems are synthesising and repeating narratives to billions of people.
The work required isn’t simple, but it’s straightforward. It starts with understanding where you currently stand and how you compare to competitors.
From there, it’s about optimizing content for AI discovery, prioritizing media outlets that AI trusts, strengthening authority signals, and measuring what matters. Even market leaders in most industries haven’t fully grasped how AI search is changing visibility.
The window to gain an advantage is open, but it is unlikely to remain open much longer. For communications professionals who have spent years building expertise in creating authoritative content, earning media coverage, and shaping brand narrative, this is a great moment.
AI search takes the work they’ve always done and makes it more valuable, more measurable, and more central to business success. They just need to understand this change and make it work.