“I’m not dead yet!” protests the plague victim in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as he’s loaded onto the cart. “I feel happy!”
That’s essentially what the SEO pros have been shouting for the past year as article after article declares search engine optimization dead, claiming that generative AI platforms have rendered traditional search optimization obsolete. But while everyone is sounding off about “the death of SEO,” something fascinating is developing at the intersection of PR and online visibility.
Anyone with a social feed sees the velocity at which people are throwing themselves onto the stage to define and claim their stake in the brave new world of AI search. The numbers tell a remarkable story: since Gartner’s December 14, 2023 prediction, posts about the power of public relations in Generative Engine Optimization have exploded across professional networks. LinkedIn posts on this topic have grown 10-20x, from roughly 10 daily mentions in December 2023 to 150 by May 2025. X posts have seen similar growth, jumping 10-15x from around 8 daily to 120.
The surge in GEO posts isn’t just noise. It’s a signal that businesses have woken up to the reality that AI platforms are influencing how their brands are presented, summarized and understood in real time. The growing volume of conversation reflects a clear shift in urgency: organizations are actively searching for new methods to manage their reputations within AI-generated results.
The rapid adoption of AI platforms in everyday life is adding layers of complexity to search results and reshaping how trustworthy information is discovered. As AI alters the architecture of online visibility, it’s becoming clear that PR professionals are uniquely positioned to lead this new chapter in search strategy.
First, let’s clear something up: SEO still matters. Its principles form the foundation of digital visibility. Its optimization techniques for site content and structured data continue to earn top rankings, drive traffic and build link authority remain vital to AI-optimization. But in an environment where AI-generated responses are often the first, and increasingly the only, point of contact between a brand and its audience, optimizing for traditional search engine rankings alone doesn’t cut it anymore.
Enter AI optimization, where GEO and LLMO are settling the score for visibility in an AI-first world.
Generative engine optimization (GEO) focuses on influencing how companies are represented in AI-driven search experiences such as Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), Perplexity and Copilot. At the same time, another movement is underway: Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO). LLMO shapes how AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini understand and describe a brand. Where GEO targets search exposure, LLMO targets comprehension, ensuring model-generated responses are accurate, well-informed, and aligned with brand truth.
GEO and LLMO don’t replace SEO. They build upon it. Structured, crawlable, authoritative content is fundamental to showing up online. But now, businesses must ask: is our content being cited in generative search responses? How is it influencing what AI models know about us?
This is where PR takes the lead. PR creates the exact kind of validated, third-party content that AI platforms prefer. When done right, PR doesn’t just secure coverage, it also generates a digital web of information that corroborates and reinforces a brand’s identity across the exact sources that AI trusts most. Within the context of LLMO, this becomes even more critical: the more consistent and credible your presence, the more confidently large language models can describe who you are and what you do.
PR professionals have always focused on reputation, consistent messaging and validation through third-party coverage. These strengths are precisely what AI models look for. These systems favor content that is reputable, verifiable and echoed across trusted sources such as newsrooms, analyst briefings, expert commentary and high-authority websites, the exact channels PR knows best.
There’s a new playbook for online brand visibility. SEO is no longer the sole player, it’s now only the starting point. Together with GEO and LLMO, SEO forms the trifecta of a comprehensive framework for digital reputation, and PR is central to all three.
As AI-driven platforms become the default go-to for search, customer support and business research, PR professionals have an expanded mandate: get client stories to the most reputable journalists and stakeholders as it’s the best way to ensure their truth shows up clearly, accurately and favorably in AI-generated responses across the world’s most powerful platforms.
So, no, SEO is not dead yet. It’s now part of a powerhouse team, with GEO and LLMO on the AI playing field, in a match where PR leads the way to amplify the message and shape the medium itself.
