For decades, press releases have been considered owned and earned media — official, verified statements issued directly by companies. Their value lay in authenticity, structure, and authority.
LLMs (Large Language Models) and the way it give preferences to authentic company owned media like press releases has brought releases back into the spotlight. Your source of searching has shifted from an outdated search engine to an AI engine like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Anthropic, which further leaves room for owned and earned media coverage.
Why GEO prioritises earned media
If your brand is featured in a Tier 1 media, know for a fact that AI engines are more likely to cite your brand in generated answers.
Continuing on the same lines, might I add that press releases feature as both earned media and owned media. Cision’s 2025 State of the Media Report notes that press releases in recent times continue to be an effective tool of brand communication, and also “with the advent of Generative AI, the press release is cementing its status as an authoritative, reliable piece of content that’s heavily referenced by AI.” Building the brand in India from scratch for the last 15 years, I can state with pride that press releases (specifically digital) are still alive and kicking, albeit in the right hands.
How to write effective press releases?
Finally, I would like to end this article with a few tips and tricks for writing press releases for efficient GEO and AEO optimisation.
When you are attempting to write a release, it’s paramount to focus on clarity, structure, and authority. To begin with, always start with a strong, factual headline and a lead paragraph that clearly answers the 5W1H (Who, Where, What, When, Why, and How) within the opening lines. This is because AI systems prioritise concise, information-rich summaries. Also, back up your release with apt statistics, infographics, and quotes from spokespersons. Finally, it’s best to use natural language with proper subheadings so that AI engines can pull structured responses.
Additionally, timeliness is a huge thing. Having managed around 2000 clients in my tenure across different geographies, I would always harp on timeliness. They say “Strike while the iron is hot”; the same holds for press releases as well. It is pivotal to getting the announcements out while the news is hot and fresh.
Winston D’Souza, business head, PR Newswire, India. PR Newswire has recently launched PR Newswire Amplify to optimise content for LLMs.
If you enjoyed this article, you can subscribe for free to our weekly event and subscriber alerts.
We have four email alerts in total - covering ESG, PR news, events and awards. Enter your email address below to find out more: