Traditional SEO still has its place, but it’s not the entire story any more. Now more than ever, buyers use AI search tools to research your company long before they even think of submitting a “Contact Us” form on your website. 

Research shows that these LLMs build their answers primarily on what third parties say about your company, rather than what your company says about itself. Earned media is therefore one of the most powerful signals of whether your brand will appear when a buyer uses an AI tool to find out what people are saying.

If you’ve spent years building a well-optimized website, that can be a frustrating thing to hear. You might be ranking well on Google and still be nowhere in the AI answers your buyers are reading. But never fear; your work isn’t for naught. Good, sound SEO practices still have a place, even as AI search gains traction.

In this blog, we’ll break down why SEO still matters, why earned media now carries so much weight in AI search, and how the two work together to keep your brand visible.

Does Traditional SEO Still Matter If Buyers Are Using AI Search?

Yes, but its job has changed. The shift in buyer behavior is real: G2’s survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers found that 51% now begin research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, up from 29% eleven months earlier.

Those statistics don’t mean SEO best practices have suddenly become irrelevant. AI tools still need to find, crawl, and understand your content, and clear, well-structured pages that answer real buyer questions are exactly what they’re built to read. Technical health, smart site architecture, and question-driven content are still the foundation. In fact, panelists on our Narrative Wins webinar warned that treating GEO as a replacement for SEO is a costly mistake, since the brands struggling most with AI visibility tend to be the ones that never built a strong SEO foundation in the first place.

What’s changed is that a ranking no longer guarantees visibility. In February 2026, Moz looked at just under 40k queries and found that in Google AI Mode, 88% of citations don’t show up in the organic results for the same query. A page one ranking and an AI citation are now two separate wins, and you should develop a strategy for both.

Why Does Earned Media Matter More Than Owned Content for AI Visibility?

Because AI tools are looking for consensus, not claims. Your website is one voice talking about your company while earned media is independent sources confirming it (or denying it!). Your website tells AI what you say about yourself; earned media tells it what everyone else says about you.

The data on this is consistent. Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse research, based on more than 25 million links, found earned media accounts for 84% of all AI citations, including journalism, academic research, government sources, encyclopedic sites, and third-party corporate content. Meanwhile, paid and advertorial content accounts for just 0.3% of citations. In other words, AI tools can tell the difference between a placement you bought and coverage you earned.

What Does This Mean for B2B and Public Sector Tech Companies?

If you’re a B2B tech vendor, the stakes are especially high because your audience adopted AI research early. 80% of buyers in tech use GenAI at least as much as search for vendor research, 21 points higher than other industries. If a buyer asks an AI tool to compare vendors in your category and your name doesn’t come up, you may never make the shortlist.

Public sector is a little different because the bar is higher. AI leans heavily on official and institutional sources for government topics, so the coverage that counts is coverage in the trusted federal, state, and local trade outlets that sit alongside those sources, tied clearly to agency mission priorities.

It’s also worth remembering that buyers don’t take AI answers at face value. Gartner’s buyer survey established that 69% of buyers use sales reps to validate AI-generated insights. Credible coverage does double duty by getting you into the AI answer and holding up when buyers look for proof.

How Do SEO and Earned Media Work Together for AI Visibility?

The strongest approach treats them as one system. Owned content builds the foundation through well-researched, question-driven pages that AI tools can easily read and quote. Earned media amplifies that foundation by putting your ideas, data, and executives into the third-party sources AI trusts most.

When those two line up, they reinforce each other. Original research published on your site gives reporters something worth covering. Coverage in respected outlets sends AI back to the same story, told consistently from multiple directions. That consistency turns scattered mentions into a recognizable point of view. 

This is where a PR partner earns its keep. At REQ, we handle media relationships, pitching, and story development so your coverage and your content tell the same message. That way, whenever someone’s searching for information about your company or industry, they’ll find what you’re saying, whether they’re using traditional or AI-driven search tools.  

Building Visibility Where Buyers Are Looking

SEO got you found. Earned media gets you trusted by buyers and by the AI tools they’re researching with. The companies that win in AI search won’t be the ones who abandon SEO; they’ll be the ones who pair it with a consistent, credible presence in the sources AI reads first.