What New Research and Our Client Results Suggest About PR and AI Search
For months, I’ve been watching a clear pattern emerge in the AI search results we monitor for clients.
Businesses that regularly publish and distribute well-written press releases appear to have a stronger chance of being discovered, understood, cited, and recommended by AI-powered search platforms.
That includes ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, and other platforms that increasingly answer questions directly instead of simply returning a list of websites.
Now, new research from Notified provides compelling data that supports what we’ve been finding in our own client work.
In May 2026, Notified analyzed more than 8,000 press releases distributed through GlobeNewswire. Using data from Profound, a generative AI visibility platform, the company examined how quickly and frequently those releases were cited by major AI systems.
The findings suggest that press releases are becoming much more than media outreach tools or a way to gain backlinks.
They’re increasingly valuable for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and AI search optimization.
Do press releases help with AI search visibility?
The Notified research suggests they can. Press releases distributed through an established newswire were cited by major AI platforms surprisingly quickly, and company-owned content was more likely to be cited when supported by a release. Our own client results suggest the opportunity may be particularly valuable for local businesses, where AI platforms often have fewer strong, relevant sources to draw from.
What the Research Found
Some of the numbers in the Notified study are difficult to ignore:
- The average time to the first AI citation was just eight hours.
- 17% of AI citations occurred within the first 24 hours.
- 99.3% of the releases in the dataset were cited by either ChatGPT or Claude.
- Company-owned content was twice as likely to be cited during the first 30 days when supported by a press release.
- Multilingual releases generated roughly twice as many citations during the first 30 days.
- Enhanced releases generated approximately 15% more citations on average.
There are some important qualifications.
The study focused on releases distributed through GlobeNewswire, an established newswire. It doesn’t mean 99.3% of every press release published anywhere will gain meaningful AI visibility.
It also doesn’t mean a citation automatically becomes a lead, customer, or sale.
A citation is a visibility signal. It isn’t the final business result.
Still, the speed and frequency with which these releases appeared in AI-generated answers strongly suggest that newswire content is becoming an important source for AI systems.
Why Press Releases Work Well for AI Search
For years, SEO professionals mainly discussed press releases in terms of backlinks, referral traffic, media coverage, and branded search results.
Those benefits can still matter, but focusing only on links may miss the bigger opportunity.
AI platforms need information they can understand, verify, and connect to specific entities, topics, services, and locations.
A properly written press release naturally provides a clearly organized set of facts:
- Who’s involved?
- What happened?
- When and where did it happen?
- Why does it matter?
- Which company or organization provided the information?
Press releases also tend to contain complete company names, locations, dates, service descriptions, quotes, and supporting sources.
That structure makes them useful to an AI platform trying to construct a clear and current answer.
Distribution adds another important element.
Instead of the information appearing only on the company’s own website, it’s published through an external source and may be syndicated across additional news and industry websites.
That broader footprint can help reinforce connections between:
- The business and its services
- The company and the locations it serves
- The brand and its leadership
- The company and its areas of expertise
- The organization and a particular project or accomplishment
- The business and the customers it’s qualified to help
AI systems need to understand not only that a company exists, but what it does, where it operates, what it knows, and when it may be relevant to a particular question.
Press releases can help reinforce those relationships.
Press Releases Can Strengthen a Company’s Website Content
One of the findings I found most interesting had nothing to do with citations of the press release itself.
Notified found that company-owned content, such as a blog, newsroom page, or campaign page, was twice as likely to be cited during the first 30 days when it was supported by a press release.
That suggests a release can do more than create another page for an AI platform to find.
It may also help AI systems discover, understand, and validate related content on the company’s website.
This supports the way we’ve been approaching PR campaigns.
A press release shouldn’t sit by itself.
It should support a broader content ecosystem that can include detailed website content, service and location pages, internal links, consistent company information, supporting research, and relevant third-party sources.
When those pieces reinforce one another, the press release becomes part of the larger information footprint surrounding the company.
Notified describes this as helping establish a canonical version of the story and an authoritative anchor that makes related information easier for AI systems to validate.
Local Businesses May Have an Even Bigger Opportunity
I believe this may be one of the most interesting opportunities for local businesses.
AI platforms have enormous amounts of information available about national brands, public companies, major institutions, and multinational businesses.
There may be thousands of articles, reviews, directories, news stories, databases, and other sources helping AI systems understand who those organizations are and what they do.
Local businesses usually don’t have anything close to that volume of information.
A local therapist, contractor, medical practice, language school, professional service firm, or home service company may have a good website, reviews, a Google Business Profile, and some mentions elsewhere online.
Compared with a national brand, though, its overall information footprint may be relatively small.
That creates a data-sparse search environment.
This becomes especially relevant for highly specific local searches, such as:
- A specific treatment, such as EMDR therapy in Chicago
- A specific type of contractor, such as a custom home builder in a particular Seattle neighborhood
- A specialized healthcare service, such as menopause counseling in a specific city
- A specific type of education, such as Tagalog language classes in Manila
- A specialized home improvement service, such as bathroom remodeling for older homes in Seattle.
For a broad national search, an AI platform may have thousands of reliable sources to draw from.
For a narrowly focused local search like these, it may find only a small number of genuinely relevant sources.
There may be very little third-party information connecting one particular local business with the exact combination of service, expertise, and location the user is asking about.
This is where a well-planned press release can become especially valuable by helping fill that information gap.
A credible release gives the AI platform another structured, externally published source that can connect a business with a specific service, location, project, specialty, or local issue.
For a multinational brand, one additional press release may simply be another document among thousands.
For a local business, it may become one of the clearest sources available explaining what the company does, where it operates, and why it’s relevant to a particular search.
The Notified study didn’t specifically compare local businesses with national companies, so this isn’t one of its stated conclusions.
It’s an inference based on how AI search appears to work and what we’ve been seeing in actual client campaigns.
And that’s what makes local AI search especially interesting: when there’s less reliable information available, each strong, relevant source may have a greater opportunity to influence how the business is understood and whether it’s included in the answer.
What We’ve Seen in Actual Client Campaigns
The Notified study caught my attention because the findings line up closely with results we were already seeing.
In campaigns where strategic press release distribution has been part of a broader SEO and AEO strategy, small businesses have earned visibility alongside, and sometimes ahead of, organizations with vastly greater marketing resources.
An Independent Educational Business Competing With Multinational Platforms
One independently owned educational business achieved an average position of 1.7 when it appeared in monitored AI answers.
It ranked third among the domains being tracked across several major AI platforms.
That placed a relatively small independent business alongside huge multinational learning platforms with much larger websites, far greater name recognition, and marketing budgets a small company couldn’t realistically match.
Press releases weren’t the only reason for that visibility.
The business also had strong website content, clear expertise, a long operating history, and relevant information published across multiple online sources.
But PR distribution was a consistent part of the strategy and helped create additional references connecting the business with its services, experience, achievements, and expertise.
A Local Professional Practice Appearing for a Highly Specific Search
A local professional practice was selected by ChatGPT as the most directly matched option for a highly specific local search.
The same practice also appeared prominently in a Google AI Overview for a related query.
This is exactly the type of data-sparse local search where having a strong and consistent information footprint may make a meaningful difference.
There may be relatively little authoritative third-party content connecting one provider with that exact combination of specialty and geographic area.
Clear, consistent information makes that relationship easier for an AI platform to recognize.
A Regional Construction Company Reaching Number-One Visibility
In another campaign, a regional residential construction company achieved 100% visibility for a monitored neighborhood-specific prompt.
It held an average position of 1.0, ranked first among the monitored competitors, and was directly cited as a source in the generated answer.
The search wasn’t a broad query for contractors across an entire state.
It focused on a particular service within a specific neighborhood.
Again, the more specialized and localized the search becomes, the smaller the pool of highly relevant information may become.
These weren’t controlled experiments.
Press releases weren’t the only work involved. The campaigns also included strong website content, technical optimization, local pages, internal linking, reputation signals, and other authority-building work.
I can’t honestly say that a press release alone caused every appearance.
But PR distribution was a consistent part of the strategy, and the repeated pattern supports what we’ve been finding in our client work.
When AI platforms have limited information about a local business, a credible and well-structured release may make a meaningful difference in how that business is understood, cited, and recommended.
This Still Has to Be Worth Publishing
None of this means every press release will create meaningful visibility, or that businesses should manufacture news simply to get another page online.
A release still needs a legitimate reason to exist.
That might be:
- A new or expanded service
- An important project
- A regulatory or industry change
- Original research
- An emerging local trend
- A community initiative
- A professional achievement
- A meaningful company development
From there, the quality and structure of the release matter.
Notified found that enhanced releases generated about 15% more citations, even when the underlying message hadn’t materially changed.
To me, that suggests businesses don’t always need more news.
They may need to do a better job of communicating the news they already have.
The strongest releases give readers something useful beyond the announcement itself. They provide specific facts, meaningful context, and clear explanations rather than relying on generic claims about “world-class service” or “industry-leading solutions.”
They make it easy to understand what happened, why it matters, who it affects, and how the company relates to the subject.
Publishing a press release just for the sake of publishing one probably isn’t going to accomplish much.
Publishing something genuinely useful, relevant, and well structured gives both people and AI systems a much better reason to pay attention.
Why We Take a Different Approach to Press Releases
That’s also where I believe our approach to PR makes a difference.
Instead of stretching to publish news that might not be all that significant, we look for ways to build a press release around information that’s genuinely useful, timely, and relevant to the company’s expertise.
The goal is to create something that does more than simply announce that a company offers a service or has reached a milestone.
For example, we’ve used changes to Seattle’s building codes as the basis for practical guidance about evaluating whether an accessory dwelling unit is actually feasible. The resulting release discusses the issue from the homeowner’s perspective rather than simply announcing that a contractor builds ADUs. (EIN Presswire)
In another campaign, we used the age of Seattle’s housing stock as the starting point for discussing problems homeowners may encounter when remodeling older bathrooms. Rather than simply promoting bathroom remodeling services, the release gives homeowners useful context around the issue. (EIN Presswire)
Those releases did more than say, “This company provides this service.”
They gave people information they could actually use while also helping establish the company as a knowledgeable source on the subject.
That matters for AI search as well.
A more substantive release gives AI platforms additional facts, context, and relevant information to associate with the company and its expertise.
A routine announcement may have a fairly short shelf life.
A useful, information-rich press release can continue to have value long after the initial news cycle has passed, especially when people continue asking questions related to the topic.
Over time, that can help establish the company not only as a service provider, but also as a credible source of information in its field.
Multilingual Distribution May Expand the Opportunity
Another finding from the Notified study deserves attention.
Multilingual releases generated roughly twice as many citations during the first 30 days as English-only releases.
For businesses serving international, multilingual, immigrant, or culturally diverse markets, that could create another opportunity.
A well-translated release doesn’t simply make the information accessible to more people.
It may also expand the number of languages, contexts, and questions in which an AI platform can discover and use that information.
Translation quality still matters.
Poorly translated or inconsistent information can create confusion rather than authority.
But for the right business, multilingual PR may significantly expand its AI search footprint.
Press Releases Should Support a Larger AEO Strategy
Press releases aren’t replacing SEO.
They’re becoming an important extension of it.
A strong AI search optimization strategy may include:
- Helpful, original website content
- Technically sound pages
- Clear service and location information
- Structured data
- Strong internal linking
- Local SEO
- Google Business Profile optimization
- Reviews and reputation signals
- Consistent company information
- Relevant third-party mentions
- Original research and expert insight
- Strategic press release distribution
The goal is to make a company easy to discover, understand, and verify.
That last part is becoming increasingly important.
A business can have a technically optimized website and still be difficult for an AI system to understand if very few external sources confirm what the company does.
The company’s own website explains what the business says about itself.
Credible third-party sources can help validate it.
A strong press release can help connect those two sides.
AI Search Changes the Goal
Traditional SEO has largely focused on one question:
Where does the website rank?
AI search introduces another:
Is the company included in the answer?
That’s an important distinction.
Search is increasingly moving from lists of links toward synthesized answers.
People are asking ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and other systems to recommend businesses, explain services, compare providers, and help them make decisions.
A company can rank well organically and still be absent from those answers.
At the same time, a smaller company may sometimes earn meaningful AI visibility alongside competitors with much larger websites and marketing budgets.
That’s why I believe businesses should start thinking about traditional SEO and AI search visibility as related, but not identical, objectives.
Press Releases Are Becoming Important AI Visibility Assets
The Notified study was produced by a PR technology company and involved releases distributed through GlobeNewswire.
It isn’t definitive proof that every press release will improve rankings, generate leads, or produce revenue.
A citation isn’t the same thing as a customer.
Still, the scale and consistency of the findings deserve attention.
The research supports what we’ve been finding in practice.
Well-written, strategically distributed press releases can give AI platforms timely, structured, externally published information about a company.
They can reinforce content on the company’s own website.
They can clarify relationships between the business, its services, its expertise, and the locations it serves.
And the best releases can go even further by contributing genuinely useful information and helping establish the company as a credible source.
For local businesses operating in data-sparse search environments, the potential value may be even greater.
Search is no longer only about appearing in a list of links.
It’s increasingly about becoming part of the answer.
At NewStar SEO, we’re continuing to test and refine how strategic PR fits into a broader SEO and AEO strategy as AI search evolves.
If you’re interested in how strategic PR might fit into your own AI search strategy, feel free to reach out.
Research discussed: Erik Carlson, AI Visibility Now Forms in Hours, Not Days: What a Study of 8,000 Press Releases Revealed, Notified, July 1, 2026.
