Let’s be honest for a second: nobody publishes a press release just to check a box.

You want people to notice your news, talk about your brand, click through to your site, and eventually buy what you’re selling.

For decades, achieving those goals meant a pretty straightforward playbook: pitch journalists, get backlinks from industry sites, and rank on Google’s first page. While those steps still matter, the ground beneath us is shifting fast.

Today, your prospective buyers aren’t just scrolling through pages of Google search results. They’re turning directly to tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews. They ask things like “Which software is best for small retail inventory?” or “What are the top new tools in supply chain tracking?”

And every once in a while, the AI gives an answer that features a company nobody’s ever heard of.

If you’re spending money on PR, that should spark a pretty critical question: How do you get your press releases picked up and cited by AI models?

Here is how to rethink your PR strategy for the era of AI discovery.

Stop writing press releases that say a lot but tell us very little

We’ve all seen them. A company announces an exciting new chapter, an innovative solution, a groundbreaking partnership, or a revolutionary approach to an industry challenge.

Here’s a quick reality check: if you can swap out your company logo for a competitor’s without changing a single word of the announcement, the press release isn’t saying anything at all.

AI engines don’t care about hype; they’re built to pull out facts to answer specific user questions.

Think about how much more useful it is when a company drops the jargon. If one business claims they just built a “groundbreaking platform to revolutionize the future of retail,” and another straight-up says they created a “dashboard that syncs Shopify, Amazon, and eBay stock levels in under 30 seconds,” guess which one gets picked up? The second one gives real, usable detail. A human reader gets it instantly, and an AI model can actually index what it does.

Cut the Drama and Write for Busy Readers

Nobody wants to decode corporate speak on a Tuesday morning. Reporters are flooded with emails, potential buyers are distracted, and AI crawlers prefer plain speaking over clever puns.

Just tell us what happened right out of the gate.

Ditch headline teasers like “A New Dawn Begins as We Challenge the Boundaries of Innovation.” Nobody searches for that, and no AI knows what to do with it. Instead, lean into plain English: “Nordic Tech Launches Tool to Cut Order Processing Times for Small Retailers.” It might not sound as dramatic, but everybody instantly understands the point.

Put the big news in your very first sentence. Use the second paragraph to lay out why it matters. Keep your formatting clean, break up those massive blocks of text, and explain technical terms like you’re describing them to a friend over coffee. Clear writing isn’t just polite, it makes your release vastly easier for algorithms to summarize correctly.

Give People Facts They Can Actually Verify

Trust is hard to earn and effortless to lose.

If you claim your software saves users ten hours a week, show your work. Did that number come from a quick internal poll of five friends, or a three-month trial with 500 active store owners?

If you want readers (and language models) to take your claims seriously, pack the release with verifiable proof:

• Drop direct links to your raw research or whitepapers instead of just referencing them.
• Name the real customers featured in your case studies.
• Include quotes from industry figures who actually have skin in the game.

AI platforms constantly cross-check information across different sites before surfacing an answer. When your claims are backed by solid data and clear links, your release transforms from basic marketing copy into a reliable reference point.

Put Your News Where People Actually Read

Writing a solid release is only half the battle. The rest comes down to distribution.

Posting updates on your own blog is great for keeping an official paper trail, but relying only on your site means you’re shouting in an echo chamber.

You need your announcement living on authoritative third-party sites—niche publications, respected industry journals, and actual news outlets. When that happens, two things take place simultaneously: real readers discover you organically, and AI scrapers cross-reference your story across multiple reputable domains.

Forget paying for those shady wire services that blast your release to 500 dead link farms. Getting featured in two genuinely respected outlets in your specific market will do ten times the work.

Answer the Questions Your Audience Is Already Asking

Before typing a single word of your next release, step away from your product roadmap for a second and think like your customer.

What’s currently keeping them up at night? What exact phrases are they typing into Google or prompting into ChatGPT when trying to solve a headache?

Instead of issuing a generic announcement that reads like a dry list of product updates, frame the news around a real problem. Explain the exact headache this update fixes, who it’s built for, and what kind of outcome early users are seeing.

When your press releases naturally answer real-world questions, they become prime context for AI assistants trained to answer those exact queries.

Ignore the “AI SEO” Growth Hacks

Whenever tech shifts, a wave of self-proclaimed experts arrives claiming they’ve cracked the code. Suddenly, you’re being told there’s a secret word count, a magical heading structure, or a hidden trick that guarantees an AI citation.

Take all of that with a heavy grain of salt.

There isn’t a master template that forces ChatGPT or Perplexity to quote you. These engines update constantly, pull from shifting data pools, and format responses on the fly depending on how a user asks a question.

Rather than wasting time chasing fleeting optimization tricks, stick to what actually lasts:

• Accuracy: Get your facts straight and make sure your claims can be backed up.
• Clarity: Say what you mean. Skip the jargon and get to the point.
• Authority: Share news that matters, insights that come from real experience, and research that brings something new to the table.

Solid PR fundamentals will outlast any algorithm update every single time.

How to Measure PR success in AI era

If you want to evaluate whether your PR strategy is actually working, stop counting how many random syndication sites republished your text.

Instead, start testing how your brand shows up in conversational search. Type in the exact questions your ideal prospects would ask:

• “What are the most reliable inventory management tools for small businesses?”
• “Which platforms recently launched features for multi-channel order syncing?”

Run these searches periodically. Pay attention to whether your brand pops up, which articles the AI references as sources, and whether your visibility improves as you publish clearer, more fact-dense news.

At the same time, keep track of the business metrics that actually matter: direct site traffic, high-intent searches for your brand name, press inquiries, and inbound leads.

Bottom Line

There’s no shortcut to getting quoted by AI.

The strategy that works today is identical to what has always worked in good PR: publish meaningful news, back it up with hard facts, write clearly, and get it published on websites people actually trust.

At PragoMedia, we help businesses distribute their news and expand its reach. If you’re planning a product launch, announcing a partnership, or sharing an important company development, the right distribution strategy can help you reach relevant audiences and strengthen your digital presence.