TV Interview on Business First

D S Simon Media – Making Brands Discoverable for 40 Years

D S Simon Media is a recognized innovator in broadcast public relations and the creator of the industry’s first AI-Powered Broadcast Media Tour™. Since the start of COVID, the firm has scheduled and produced more than 5,000 media segments annually, further establishing itself as a category leader. Clients include top brands in healthcare, technology, travel, financial services, food and beverage, consumer goods, entertainment, retail, and non-profits. Established in 1986, the firm has won more than 100 industry awards.

TRANSCRIPT:

ANGELA: Now, onto the AI business edge. Doug Simon, President and CEO of D S Simon Media, is here to give you a business edge on generative engine optimization. Doug, start by explaining first what is generative engine optimization?

DOUG: Sure, Angie and it’s great to be back on your show. Generative engine optimization, or GEO is the way that brands, organizations, and companies are being discovered when their customers, their prospects are looking for information online. What’s happened is people used to rely on search engine optimization. They’d put in keywords, see what they found. But, with the tremendous AI boom that is taking place, in fact, 60% of consumers now are using AI search to find the information they need. So, it’s critical that businesses optimize to make sure those consumers find them.

ANGELA: What can contribute to making a company more optimized? Give us some pointers.

DOUG: Sure, the key thing is to really match the content you’re creating to the questions and queries people are asking when they’re using these search engines like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini on Google. In fact, now when you do a Google search, the first thing that comes up isn’t links like it used to be. It’s the AI search results, AI information. So, that’s where businesses need to be. So, how do they get there? One is the content they create that’s on their website and social media, but what’s growing in importance is the role of earned media can be discovered by customers, by prospects, as well as placements in print and online media.

ANGELA: How is AI power working at your company?

DOUG: Our business is specialized in generating media interviews, earned media coverage for our clients for many years. In fact, 2026 is our 40th anniversary year, so the first step in the process now is really to understand what’s on customers minds. That’s always been important, but now there are these amazing tools and our platform enables us to look across all 11 of the top large language models that we’ve been talking about, and identify not only where the brand stands in competition with its competitors, but what’s on consumer’s mind with the ten top queries that they’re asking. This way, the information provided to media, the answers from your spokespeople all match the questions and tie your brand to what consumers are thinking about, concerned about, and asking about that’s relevant to your organization and this is only going to grow.

ANGELA: Thank you for helping us out and for helping businesses become more visible.

DOUG: You can go to our website at www.dssimon.com. Of course, you can search for information on many of the platforms, including ChatGPT, about the role of generative engine optimization. Thanks for having me on your show.