A growing share of research now starts with a question to an AI assistant rather than a search box. For B2B brands, the question is no longer just whether you rank on Google, but what ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude say when someone asks about your category. Here is what the evidence suggests you should do.
1. Find out what AI already says about you
Ask the main assistants the questions your buyers ask: who leads in your sector, who to shortlist for a service, how your company compares with competitors. Note what is wrong, missing or out of date. This is the baseline everything else should improve.
2. Invest in earned coverage
Muck Rack’s research into more than 25 million AI citations found that 84% came from earned media and just 0.3% from paid or advertorial content. Coverage in respected publications is the single biggest input into what AI systems say about a market.
3. Keep it current
In Muck Rack’s December 2025 analysis, half of all AI citations came from articles published within the previous 11 months. Regular commentary, reactive PR and fresh announcements keep your brand inside the window AI tools draw from.
4. Publish evidence, not adjectives
The press releases AI tools cited most often contained twice as many statistics as average and were noticeably more objective in tone. Original research, clear data and plain, factual language are more likely to be picked up by journalists and machines alike.
5. Do not abandon your own channels
The Reuters Institute found only 42% of chatbot news users regularly click through to original sources, and a 2026 randomised trial showed AI Mode cutting click-through rates by almost 19 percentage points. Your website still matters, but newsletters, events and direct relationships matter more when search sends less traffic.
AI visibility is not a new discipline so much as an old one with higher stakes: be credible, be covered by people your market trusts, and say something worth repeating.
City Road Communications runs B2B PR and AI visibility programmes for technology, property and financial services firms. Talk to us about how your business appears in AI answers today.