Keith Richards and the press release have a lot in common.
Despite unimaginable levels of abuse, neither dies.
While, by most estimates, Keith is on his 124th life, press releases have had at least 3 distinct lives:
- Print era: They were for journalists. Get ink or go home.
- SEO epoch: Stuff ‘em with keywords, drop in a backlink farm, and watch the Google juice flow.
- AI era: Now they’re structured data packets towards signal clarity for large language models, so you get surfaced in AI-generated answers.
I love Keith. But I’ve always sorta hated releases.
That said, I have to admit, they might now matter more than ever.
Why?
Authority in the machine’s eyes: AI systems weigh credible sources. A release on PR Newswire or Business Wire is a “trust signal” AI actually respects. By way of example, when Business Wire rolled out AI-driven wire enhancements, engagement on releases shot up 25%.
Clean structure = easy ingestion: The (somewhat) rigid press release format maps perfectly to how LLMs parse and store facts. It also lends itself to adding in structural pieces bots love.
Entity reinforcement: As part of a bigger program involving owned, earned and other content, releases on trusted wires can teach AI that your brand owns a topic.
How do you write releases for AI and Generative Engine Optimization?
- Lead with facts, not fluff. AI rewards clarity in the first sentence. Get right to it.
- Structure for GEO. Use bullets, subheads, and tables where warranted so AI can lift clean snippets.
- Use language that feels human. In the SEO era, we drove ourselves batty trying to jam in keywords. For AI releases need to use natural, semantically-related terms that also appear the same way in the other places your brand shows up.
- Properly label accompanying media. Use alt-tagged images that AI can read, and include things like explainer videos with transcripts if you have them.
We’re in a release renaissance. We went from writing for humans, to writing for algos, to writing for bots that talk like humans.
Like Keith Richards, press releases won’t fade away. They should be part and parcel of any program aimed at signal clarity for bots.
