A(nother) GEO Blog
So, you’ve completed your GEO audit. You know where your brand stands. You know where you’re winning, and where you’re losing.
Everyone should know by now that there’s no such thing as position three with A.I. There’s only position one. If you’re not position one (the answer), you’re invisible. As Walker Ricky Bobby says; “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
The next question on your lips should be: ‘How do we win then?’
There’s no single one word answer, there are multiple one word answers. So let’s deal with the most important (?) one: Authority.
Back in the (boring) old days of SEO, the goal was winning the click. In this brave new world of GEO, the goal is being cited as the answer. It requires a fundamental shift from being ‘found’ to being ‘trusted’.
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A.I doesn’t just look for info, it looks for authority. In my last couple of blogs, I spoke about the shift from lists to synthesised answers. But how do LLMs decide that you are the answer? It’s not about sitemaps, keywords. It’s about trust, which is exactly why PR is the ultimate weapon in the GEO era.
AI models are designed to find confidence in the same places that humans do. High authority media coverage is the single most important trust signal you can send to a generative engine.
When we land a piece of top-tier earned media for a client, we aren’t just doing it for the hit or the brand awareness anymore, we’re doing it for the AI’s benefit.
Think of every media appearance as a deposit into your Fact Bank. Every time a credible title or journalist quotes your founder or an article references your brand as a ‘pioneer’ or a “market leader”, you’re adding to your official record of expertise.
The goal is ultimately to create a brand echo moment, a situation where the AI hears your narrative repeated back to it by the world’s most skeptical gatekeepers; journalists. When your story echoes across various top tier publications, the AI stops guessing and starts treating your expertise as settled truth.
This isn’t just “PR magic”, it’s third party validation. If the media trusts you, the AI treats your brand story or message as settled truth. Scary, I know. But humans have been doing that for centuries, so who cares if the clankers join in.
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Earned V Owned
AI is skeptical. It doesn’t really care what you say on your own website. While your owned spaces may provide the “raw data” or textbooks for AI to read, the machine doesn’t automatically grant you authority.
In the GEO age, your website is your claim, but media validation is your proof.
AI models are specifically trained to prioritise institutional authority over brands blowing their own trumpet.
They are looking for independent verification that what you say is actually true. You can call yourself a ‘market leader’ till the cows come home, but that’s just marketing. When a national broadsheet or top-tier trade title says it, it becomes (say it again) settled truth.
You can’t self-proclaim your way to the top of a generative response. You need the media to vouch for you. And you can’t just self proclaim your way to media endorsements, you need a PR agency to do that for you.
PR isn’t just about getting the story out, it’s about building the unshakeable public record that teaches AI who the real authorities are.
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The “zero click age” isn’t a tomorrow project, it’s a today problem. 68% of users are already getting what they need without clicking a single link. If your brand isn’t part of that answer, you’re already losing. If you’re ready to stop being found, and start being the trusted authority, it’s time you started building out your fact bank.
Drop us a message at hello@wearestoryshop.com and let’s start working our way towards becoming the answer.
