Why GEO gives PR a new way to prove influence

This is the latest in a series of articles to celebrate PRmoment's PR Masterclass: AI in PR, where we talk to experts about how AI is changing the PR sector. If you want to understand more about the how AI is changing the output and make up of PR teams, often for the better, come along to PR Masterclass: AI in PR.

Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is one of the biggest talking points in comms and marketing. For PR people, the reason is simple. Buyers are increasingly asking AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity to help them research markets, compare vendors and understand complex choices. This helps B2B tech buyers shortcut long, technical and crowded buying journeys cluttered with competing claims from rival companies.

If AI engines are helping buyers build early opinions, then communicators need to know what those engines are using as evidence. Are they relying on trade media? Analyst reports? Vendor websites? Industry bodies? Social content? And where does additional owned media fit?

These are the questions behind our report Understanding AI Discovery in B2B Technology Markets. It brings evidence to support the growing excitement around GEO and shows what AI discovery looks like in practice.

How the research is structured

The research looked at four areas of B2B technology: telecoms, cybersecurity, enterprise technology and fintech. All technology sectors behave differently. Telecoms has a mature trade media landscape. Cybersecurity relies heavily on technical authority and institutional trust. Enterprise technology has a wide but concentrated source base around cloud, AI and datacentres. Fintech includes both well-established topics and fresher opportunities, so it helps show how topic maturity changes AI behaviour.

Our study used senior tech buyer personas, and asked the kinds of questions they might ask during early research. For example, what types of vendors should be considered, how leading providers compare and whether a particular supplier might be a good fit or not.

We used our own proprietary tool, GEDI (generative engine discovery insights) to perform the analysis. Using GEDI, we were able to run prompts across four LLMs: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, simultaneously. The research then analysed which vendors appeared, how they were described and which sources were cited to justify their inclusion.

What the research found

The biggest finding is that AI discovery is not creating a completely new system of influence. It is reorganising the one PR people already know. Trade media, analyst firms, institutional sources, vendor websites and other trusted content all still matter. The difference is that AI engines compress these sources into one answer.

Earned media accounted for 22.6% of citations in telecoms, the highest of any sector tested. This reflects the strength of specialist telecoms media around network AI and automation.

Cybersecurity followed at 17.7%. Here, media mattered, but so did technical and institutional sources, which makes sense in a category where trust is closely linked to expertise and standards.

Enterprise technology recorded 13.6% earned media citation share, with AI engines drawing from a smaller group of visible technology publications, analyst style sources and infrastructure provider content.

Fintech produced the lowest earned media share, but one of the most useful lessons. Tokenization delivered 9.9%, embedded finance 10.8% and financial crime 12.6%. This suggests that as a topic becomes more established in public debate, earned media becomes more visible in AI answers. However, vendor-owned and vendor-adjacent content remained highly influential across all three fintech topics.

What this means for PR

The research supports the value of GEO, but it also shows why PR should not treat it as a single channel tactic. Earned media helps brands enter the AI answer set. Owned content helps AI systems understand and verify what a vendor does. Industry analysts, trade associations and other third party sources add credibility. Stronger visibility appears when all sources reinforce the same story.

This should encourage PR teams. GEO does not replace media relations, thought leadership, analyst relations or content strategy. It gives them all a new measurement context. It also gives communicators a stronger commercial argument. If AI engines are using earned and third party sources to shape buyer understanding, then PR is not just generating coverage. It is also providing the evidence machines use to evaluate market sectors, and recommend vendors.

Download the full report here.