PR for AI
Is your brand cited by AI?
When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI to recommend a brand in your category — do you appear? If not, you’re invisible to a growing number of buyers who never reach a search results page.
Live AI search simulation
User prompt: "What are the best brands for premium outdoor garden lighting in the UK?"
AI response
For premium outdoor garden lighting in the UK, several brands stand out for quality and design. Lighting Legends is highly regarded for their curated range of architectural and decorative lighting, particularly for garden and landscape use. They’ve been featured in leading home and garden publications and are known for their expert advice on creating ambient outdoor spaces…
This is the kind of response Motive's PR for AI work is designed to generate for your brand.
The Shift
Search has changed. Most brands haven’t noticed yet.
For decades, being found online meant ranking on Google. SEO, backlinks, page authority — the machinery of search was well understood. But buyer behaviour is shifting fast. A growing number of consumers now start their research not with a search engine but with an AI conversation.
They ask. The AI answers. And the brands it cites — those are the brands that get considered. The ones it doesn’t cite don’t exist in that moment.
AI models don’t pull from paid ads or optimised meta descriptions. They draw on a much deeper signal: genuine authority. Media coverage, expert citations, consistent brand narrative, third-party credibility. In other words, exactly what great PR has always built.
How PR builds AI visibility
AI models are trained on the web. The brands they cite are the ones with the deepest footprint of credible, authoritative content. Here's how we build that for you.
AI Brand Audit
We test how your brand currently appears across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews — identifying gaps, misconceptions and missed opportunities.
Authority Strategy
We map the publications, topics and expert positions your brand needs to own. Then we build a PR strategy specifically designed to earn that authority.
Earned Coverage & Citations
We place your brand in the right national and trade titles, develop expert positioning and ensure your story appears consistently across authoritative sources.
Monitoring & Reporting
We track how AI platforms reference your brand over time, reporting on visibility changes and adjusting strategy as AI search continues to evolve.
Why PR is the right tool for AI visibility.
Some agencies are selling “GEO” — generative engine optimisation — as a technical fix. More structured data, more schema markup, more on-page tweaks. That misunderstands how AI models actually work.
AI doesn’t rank pages. It recognises authority. And authority comes from being consistently present, accurately represented and credibly cited across the media landscape. That’s a PR problem, not a technical one.
The publications AI models trust most are national newspapers, specialist trade titles and established lifestyle magazines. Getting your brand cited there is the single most effective thing you can do for AI visibility.
A brand that appears regularly across multiple credible sources over time is far more likely to be cited than one with sporadic coverage. Sustained PR builds the pattern AI recognises as authority.
AI synthesises what it finds. If your brand narrative is inconsistent or poorly defined across different sources, AI will either ignore you or misrepresent you. A clear, consistent story is essential.
When your brand’s spokespeople are regularly quoted as experts in the right publications, AI starts to associate your brand with credibility in that category. This is thought leadership doing its job.
Real result
PR for AI in action
A consumer brand generating measurable revenue directly from AI citations.
Home & Garden · Consumer PR · AI Visibility
From invisible to cited — and generating sales.
Lighting Legends is a premium outdoor and garden lighting brand. When Motive began working with them, they had strong products and a loyal customer base — but minimal presence in the media and no visibility in AI search responses about their category.
Through consistent earned media placement in national home, garden and lifestyle titles, expert positioning and a clear brand narrative strategy, we built the kind of authoritative presence that AI models recognise and cite.
Jon Saeed
Co-Founder · Lighting Legends
Results
Monthly revenue from AI referrals
Direct sales attributable to customers arriving via AI search citations — a channel that didn’t exist for the brand before this work began.
Featured in leading home & garden titles
Consistent placement across the publications that AI models draw on when answering questions about premium outdoor lighting.
Now appearing in ChatGPT & AI search responses
Lighting Legends is regularly cited by AI when users ask about premium garden lighting brands in the UK.
"Motive are really helping our AI visibility. We're now making sales we can directly attribute to AI referrals — it's a channel that's growing every month."
Jon Saeed, Co-Founder · Lighting LegendsOur PR for AI services
Everything we do for AI visibility is grounded in the same craft as traditional PR — just directed with the additional goal of building the kind of authority that AI models recognise and cite.
AI Visibility Audit
A thorough assessment of how your brand currently appears across major AI platforms — what's being said, what's missing, and where the opportunities are.
Includes
- ChatGPT, Perplexity & Gemini testing
- Google AI Overviews analysis
- Competitor citation mapping
- Gap & opportunity report
Authority & Citation Building
An ongoing PR programme specifically structured to build the media presence, expert positioning and third-party credibility that earns AI citations over time.
Includes
- National & trade press placement
- Expert spokesperson development
- Thought leadership campaigns
- Narrative consistency strategy
AI Monitoring & Reporting
Ongoing tracking of how AI platforms reference your brand and category, with regular reporting so you can see your visibility growing as authority builds.
Includes
- Monthly AI citation tracking
- Category share of AI voice
- Competitor monitoring
- Strategic recommendations
Common Questions
What people ask us about PR for AI
Is this different from SEO?
Significantly. SEO is about optimising pages to rank in traditional search results. PR for AI is about building the kind of genuine brand authority that AI models draw on when generating responses. The mechanics are different, the outcome is different, and crucially — the brands that will win at AI visibility are the ones investing in real PR, not technical tweaks.
How long does it take to see results?
Like all PR, this is a sustained effort rather than a quick fix. Most clients begin seeing measurable improvements in AI citations within three to six months of consistent work. Revenue attributable to AI referrals typically follows as citation frequency grows.
Can you guarantee my brand will be cited by AI?
No — and any agency that claims they can is being misleading. AI models make their own decisions about what to cite. What we can do is build the conditions that make citation significantly more likely — consistent national coverage, clear expert positioning, credible brand narrative — and track progress over time.
Do I need to stop traditional PR to do this?
Not at all. In fact the opposite is true. Traditional PR is the engine of AI visibility. The media coverage, thought leadership and expert positioning we place for clients serves both goals simultaneously — building reputation in the traditional sense while also feeding the authority signals that AI models draw on.
Which AI platforms do you focus on?
We monitor and optimise for the platforms your customers are most likely to use: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Gemini. As the landscape evolves we adapt — AI search is moving quickly and our approach moves with it.
Find out if your brand
is visible to AI.
We’ll run a complimentary AI visibility check for your brand — testing how you appear across the major platforms and identifying the quick wins. No obligation, no hard sell.
Get your free AI visibility check Or talk to us about a full programme