How Ai Search Is Changing Pr And Seo Linkedin

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Nov 18, 2025, 12:09 PM

how ai search is changing pr and seo linkedin

Let me start with something we’ve all felt, but haven’t all said out loud: SEO is changing, fast. Search engines are now powered by AI systems like Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), ChatGPT, and Perplexity. And when AI Overviews show up in results, click-through rates to organic links can plummet. But this doesn’t mean traffic is dead. It just means that where and how we show up, before the click, matters more than ever. One of the smartest, most underused ways to do that right now?

Publishing natively on LinkedIn. AI-powered search prioritizes content from high-authority, well-structured sources. Think Reddit, Quora, and increasingly, LinkedIn. Nicole Dunn is the CEO of Dunn Pellier Media, Inc; PR for the fitness, health and wellness sector. As CEO of a wellness PR firm working with brands in health, fitness and longevity, I’ve seen firsthand how the digital landscape continues to evolve—especially with the rise of the AI-driven search. We recently had an internal conversation with our SEO partners about the next frontier: generative engine optimization (GEO).

It was a wake-up call that it’s time we step even deeper into this new world. In today’s era of AI-powered queries and chatbot recommendations, being visible requires more than keywords: It demands brand credibility, consistent storytelling and digital authority. And that’s precisely where public relations (PR) can be the power engine behind SEO and GEO. PR drives the brand visibility, thought leadership and trust signals that both consumers and algorithms recognize. The stories your PR team tells—whether through earned media, thought leadership articles or high-authority backlinks—are the very signals that AI tools now use to determine relevance and authority. For wellness, fitness and health tech brands competing in a saturated space, a strategic PR foundation can not only shape public perception of your brand but also fuel the data that drives discovery.

For decades, public relations professionals focused on landing media placements that connected directly with human readers. Around Asheville, NC and within our broader agency work, that meant building relationships with outlets our clients loved — and tracking the growing footprint of SEO as Google became central to every PR push. But with 2025 in full swing and AI shaping how news is discovered, the choices agencies make about which outlets to pitch have never carried more weight. The rise of AI-driven search—sometimes called generative engine optimization (GEO), answer engine optimization (AEO), or simply AI SEO—means that major language models now play a hands-on role in choosing whose stories appear in response... For LinkedIn’s global consumer communications team, AI has become a factor they can’t afford to ignore when plotting out their next earned media move. Catherine Fisher, serving as LinkedIn’s vice president of global consumer communications, describes AI visibility as an integral, though not overriding, part of the media selection process.

Her team balances traditional goals—reaching a trusted, relevant audience—with ensuring that published stories are accessible to AI crawlers powering tools like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews. Fisher won’t rule out working with outlets that aren’t indexed by AI. Yet she’s clear: in 2025, ignoring the interplay between earned media and LLMs would be a mistake. AI isn’t the whole game, but it’s now a central piece on the board. This change shapes how LinkedIn—and agencies across the country—craft their blended outreach strategies. Let’s dig into how this approach played out in the wild, with LinkedIn’s own “Top Colleges” story as a case in point.

Twenty years ago, PR followed simple rules. You pitched stories to publications that your audience read. That was it. Then search engines changed everything, and we started caring about backlinks and domain authority. Now? We're dealing with AI search, or "generative engine optimization" as some marketing genius decided to call it.

Because regular SEO wasn't confusing enough, apparently. LinkedIn has added a new layer to its media strategy. They're now factoring in whether AI will crawl certain outlets. This approach is apparently just another component of their overall media planning now. Oh great, just what we needed, another variable in the already complicated media relations equation. Regular search had a logical system.

People searched for information, clicked on websites, saw ads, and publishers made money. Everybody won. AI search flips this model on its head. The answers show up directly in the results. There's no reason to visit websites anymore. Recent findings show AI search reduces clickthrough rates by 34.5%.

That's terrible for publishers who rely on site traffic for revenue. What are publishers doing about this? They're striking deals with AI companies at record speed. OpenAI is collecting partnerships with major media companies – from People Inc. to Hearst and everyone in between. These publishers are essentially trading direct access to their content for guaranteed payment.

A sign of desperation? You decide. For the last two years, LinkedIn has tried to infuse AI into different parts of its platforms, including ad copies, content creation, personalized digests, hiring assistance, job hunting advice, and learning. The company is now finally adding AI to one of the most-used parts of the site: search. Earlier this year, the company released a job search tool for members in the U.S., allowing them to search for jobs using natural language queries. Now, the company is extending the feature to people search.

Users can use queries like “Find me investors in the healthcare sector with FDA experience,” people who “co-founded a productivity company and are based in NYC,” or “Who in my network can help me... Until now, LinkedIn’s search has been more complicated. You can type in a few words to find the right people or rely on many different LinkedIn filters in the hope of getting the right results. Plus, you also have to think about what kinds of words you might want to use to get the best out of the search system. “With lexical search, you have to know the exact title of the person, or you need to wrestle with filters to find the right person, maybe. And if you didn’t know the right combination, the right person remained undiscovered.

The new AI-powered people search is designed to be the fastest path to the person who can help you the most,” Rohan Rajiv, senior director of product management at LinkedIn, told TechCrunch over a... Mirza Germovic, SVP of AI Solutions & Advisory at Edelman and Whitney Hart, Chief Strategy Officer, Avenue Z explained why and how certain media sources are more likely to appear in AI search results... Whitney Hart gives three actionable takeaways for anyone trying to gain visibility via Large Language Models such as ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Open AI and other AI search platforms. Watch the segment here, or watch the full session, "AI’s Influence on SEO - What PR Teams Should Know," by following the link. [WHITNEY HART] So to dive into the media side more carefully, since that's what we're here to talk about today, news and media sources. ChatGPT is most commonly linking to the nine media sources linked on the right.

And this is according to similar web from a March, 2025 study. So we see that top news and media sites like Reuters, New York Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, are all benefiting from traffic being driven to their sites as a result... AI has transformed SEO from a technical task into a reputation-driven strategy. Search engines and generative AI tools now prioritize credibility, authority, and contextual relevance over traditional SEO tactics like backlinks and keyword density. Public relations is now the foundation of visibility in AI-powered search. Consistent earned media, executive thought leadership, and expert mentions signal trust to AI systems—making PR essential for improving rankings and inclusion in AI-generated summaries.

Integrating PR and SEO creates future-proof discoverability. When PR builds credibility and SEO structures it for AI, brands gain sustained visibility, stronger investor confidence, and leadership in emerging industries like wellness, cleantech, and AI itself. SEO is no longer technical, it’s reputational. Artificial intelligence has transformed how information is found and how brands earn attention. For companies in growth mode, this shift is not just a change; it’s a competitive opportunity. AI-driven platforms like Google’s Search Generative Experience, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are reframing SEO from a keyword game to a trust game.

These engines prioritize authority and contextual relevance over backlinks and keyword density. Today, visibility is defined by credibility. As search engines evolve, so must the way brands tell their stories. For PR, IR and communications professionals, understanding the seismic shifts in SEO—driven by AI and large language models—is no longer optional. Today, brand content must do more than use the right keywords; it must solve real problems, answer real questions, and align with why people are searching. Join our experts for a timely conversation on:

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How Ai Search Is Changing Pr And Seo Linkedin

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