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TRANSCRIPT:

DOUG: It always creates buzz and a great opportunity to learn when I speak with Sara Evans. I’m so happy to have you on the show.  

SARAH: Thanks for having me.  

DOUG: Yeah. Speaking of buzz, what are some of your favorite buzzwords that are going around about AI? And then we can dive into seeing what they actually mean.  

SARAH: I love that. I’ll start with my number one favorite, which I’ve been talking about a lot, which is Gen AI Wire press release. Some of the folks in other communities might call it an AI notice, but it’s a different way of using press releases on the wire to impact AI visibility. That’s another buzzword, AI visibility. It’s like SEO, but for ChatGPT, if I had to make it really accessible and easy, my mom could understand it. Generative search. Let’s talk about this like it’s another Google, but for AI answer engine optimization. This is kind of a trendy SEO rebrand, but modern-day SEO, it combines SEO and generative search. You might also call it GEO. It’s got lots of different names right now.  

DOUG: It was GEO early. That’s what we’ve sort of latched on to for what our products are. So, maybe I’ll get some advice from you on whether I should jump on the AEO bandwagon. AI discoverability, AI search. But really, what this is all about is that instead of worrying about SEO, an incredible number of people are discovering content using AI search. And that includes people who just go on Google, throw in keywords, and end up with an AI overview at the top. How is that forcing change on how PR and marketing communications are being handled?  

SARAH: Well, if you think about it, for at least a large percentage of my career, we were trying to optimize for those ten blue links on Google’s homepage, and with the onset of social media and the onset of search engine optimization, we’ve had to go through a few iterations of this in our career. So, we’re not new to this; this is just a really big moment in time. So, we were not only optimizing for what would have been traditional SEO, but also for opportunities to show up in Google News and those sorts of opportunities, but also for how brands are being or showing up as an answer when people enter prompts. And prompts aren’t always questions; sometimes they’re actual long tail phrases people string together. Sometimes they’re tasks that you ask a system to do for you. And sometimes people are dropping in really big proposals and say, should I make this $53,000 commitment?  

DOUG: It’s fascinating what’s going on. And one of the things we find, especially with the focus on earned media and the impact it can have on search results, is that it’s not really that different. It’s always been about, hey, what are the people asking? What are they trying to find out? What do they need to know? And can you provide that to them? But now it seems like there’s an incredible leap forward and actually understanding in mass what they’re really trying to identify and being able to optimize for that.  

SARAH: I’m so glad you brought that up, because it is something I’ve been really trying to push, that when I talk about writing for machines, it actually makes us write better for humans, because machines has very simple language to describe something. And for a long time, there’s been a disconnect with brand messaging where they want to have, you know, category creation language or get super creative, as we know, our marketing counterparts like to do. And it didn’t align with what people were actually looking for. Now the layer of SEO started to hold us to that with SEO keywords. What are people searching and typing? But now we’re actually thinking about how people are prompting, and that gets at a whole other layer. And when you start to force yourself to think about how you would explain this very clearly to a machine, it means you might also inherently be explaining it better for your customers.  

DOUG: Yeah, and another meaning for prompt is sort of quickly, that we get things moving and things are moving faster than ever. Are there any skills or awareness that PR professionals need to develop to work effectively alongside AI?  

SARAH: I don’t want to create fear for my peers, and most times I talk about this in a dual pathway capacity. Traditional PR still has a place, traditional earned media still has a place, and if you are going forth and doing that job, you are inherently going to impact generative search. However, I do believe that at some point in the next 18 months, without giving away my what’s next to answer, some things will happen that will require us to have an additional layer of skills. And that does require some basic SEO knowledge, because some of the things that apply there apply to how we structure schema, format, and some of our content. A refresher on owned media, and the importance of that, because it impacts a lot of generative searches. You still need your earned media chops. And then this layer of GMO, AI scientist, that’s probably an accelerated version, but all of those different pieces will build the modern-day comms professional.  

DOUG: Yeah. And we’re also seeing that AI-led purchasing processes can benefit B2B organizations. And we’ll get into that with a genetic AI that you’re really moving out front, but it’s not just about B2C anymore. It’s B2B where the discoverability, whether you call it answer engine optimization, AI search discoverability, or GEO businesses that sell to business are increasingly finding it important to be discovered beyond.  

SARAH: We kind of joke with my CEO and me that all B2B decisions will be made in AI by 2030, and that’s not so far off, and it’s not so far-fetched. I mean, we’re seeing decisions being made in many different ways. I actually was searching for one of our clients today in Google AI overview, and I took a screenshot because ads came up in a new place. I’ve never seen ads before, and their product was up there. And so, I don’t know right now what the algorithm was, whether it was changed, or what it’s showing, but it showed ads, then the Google AI overview, and then went into general search.  

DOUG: Wow. That’s fascinating. Obviously, they’re going to have to figure out ways to monetize all this growth when the costs are so extreme. So, you’ve talked about the professionals purchasing processes, agent AI, which you’re sort of at the forefront of trying to implement for clients. Can you explain what agentic AI is compared to what we think of as generative?  

SARAH: Here’s the essential difference. And I’ll tell you the part that we’re most concerned about. It’s when AI agent to AI agent is talking, and there’s no human in the middle to make some sort of decision. And what we’re most concerned about, because I live and work and breathe in that B2B space, is agentic commerce. When agent-to-agent decision making for purchases will be happening. And you might have experienced it yourself this holiday season. I was looking for very specific wrapping paper for my daughter, and I just went into ChatGPT, and I’m like, I’m looking for a wrapping paper that has books on it. So, I could have like a library-themed wrapping paper. It gave me a link to Etsy, the image. I clicked on it and was able to purchase it right within ChatGPT. So, I made a purchase decision, and I didn’t go to Google to verify or look anywhere else. I didn’t even go to Etsy. So, that’s because obviously, a partnership they have an alignment and we’ll see more of that. And that’s just an example of the scale that’s coming for B2B.  

DOUG: Yeah. So, what’s next? What do people really need to know about? And people in communications need to know to be sort of holding onto the reins for dear life, but not only that, being in a position where they’re in control and able to move forward and expand what they’re able to do.  

SARAH: I have some very intense thoughts on this. As you know, Doug, and I think there is a progression, and without getting too overwhelming, that baseline, even though for me, I feel like I’ve been talking about this for a year, but I do think it’s what’s next is just an understanding of AI visibility, how your brand is being interpreted by AI, how it shows up and how it shows up, and what you predict your ICP or super consumer, and that’s the most important thing. How do you think they are prompting? And that’s where PR professionals are going to be forced to think a little bit like marketers. I don’t know that I ever got an education in my college years to talk about super consumers or your ideal customer persona, and that’s something marketers use all the time. Now, when we know that, we know the intent with which somebody is putting in a prompt, like if somebody’s signaling, they’re ready to buy the best SaaS for enterprise business, somebody’s looking to buy something, or compare something. And if you can guess, that’s what people are putting. And if you show up as an answer or not, if your brand is in that space, that’s a very powerful metric. And then if you’re not an answer and you know that you can strategize on how to become the answer, well, now you’ve just linked PR to rev ops and sales.  

DOUG: Yeah, it’s so fascinating. We’re even seeing it with the television producers that we work with to pitch stories, we are midway through a survey. And the preliminary result is that more than two-thirds of the stations are looking to optimize the content they place online for EOG, IO, AI search, however you want to name it. And already 40% say that they’re finding stories to cover using AI. So, it’s really coming at it from all directions that there’s going to become a greater need to optimize your pitches for what people want to know.  And you even reference this before, how it’s getting away from that jargon that so many people, you know, good PR people or maybe forced into. And that’s one of the sort of fun reactions we’ve got when we tell people about our AI-Powered Broadcast Media Tour™ is we did a report for them. One of them was like, oh my God, I love this. No jargon.  

SARAH: Journalists don’t like it either. The media don’t like it either.  

DOUG: No one is going on these sites and asking jargon weighted laden questions. If you have one other prediction for the future, or maybe even a last buzzword or two you want to throw in, the people need to be on top of.

SARAH: Authority signals. I mean, we’ve in PR, we’ve lived this life for a long time, but the change of what authority signals are meaning gen AI compliant things. Let’s talk about gen AI-compliant media. Not all media is created equal right now. You could get a great hit in Business Insider or similar. It’s behind a paywall. Well, LLMs can’t access that, so it doesn’t really help you, but it still serves from a vanity reputational perspective, but then you get coverage in a place like Hacker Noon, which I am all over right now, and it will give you SEO, GEO give you all of this type of high value impact, and it was never on your radar.  

DOUG: All right. Well, you’ve been all over everything ahead of its time. So, it’s so great to have you on the program. Any final thoughts to leave the viewers with?  

SARAH: No, I think just question everything right now. And if you can combine, one of my best practices has been to surround myself with people who have areas of knowledge that I do not have. I am very lucky. On our team, we have AI developers and AI scientists, but I’m talking to my marketing counterparts. I’m talking to SEO experts about what everyone is seeing. I’m very curious, which is really the key driver. I don’t know everything. I’m just asking about as much as I can.  

DOUG: We can go back to the days when you were among the first to evangelize Twitter, right? And now here we are in this AI time period. It’s so great to have you on the podcast.  

SARAH: Thank you, Doug.