The rise of AI search has changed the rules of online visibility, and PR is suddenly back in the spotlight. Press Ranger—a platform known for using earned media to boost brand rankings inside AI models—has inked a new strategic partnership with OtterlyAI, one of the leading platforms for AI search monitoring and optimization. Together, the two companies want to make it easier for brands to understand, track, and dominate when AI engines decide which sources to cite.

This isn’t a feel-good handshake agreement. Press Ranger will become OtterlyAI’s preferred PR partner for boosting discoverability across AI-driven results. In return, OtterlyAI becomes the recommended AI search analytics tool for Press Ranger’s customers and community.

For brands competing in the new era of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)—where AI recommendation engines increasingly shape visibility—the partnership signals a broader shift: SEO alone won’t cut it anymore, and PR is becoming a critical lever for influencing what AI systems choose to surface.

Why AI Search Is Breaking Traditional SEO

Search as we’ve known it—ten blue links, keyword competition, and endless on-page optimization—is fading. AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity are rewriting how people find answers. Instead of scanning search results, users now get consolidated, AI-synthesized responses sourced from material those engines deem credible.

The result?
Brands must ensure they appear in datasets and citations—not just search results.

That’s where GEO comes in. GEO shifts the focus from ranking on Google to ranking inside AI responses, which prioritize well-structured informational content, editorial coverage, and authority sources.

Press Ranger has positioned itself squarely in this transition, helping hundreds of brands expand their digital footprint via news articles and PR placements—content categories AI engines regularly draw from. Meanwhile, OtterlyAI monitors how these engines reference brands, flagging where visibility is rising or fading.

Their partnership essentially bridges PR creation and AI search analytics, giving marketers a closed-loop strategy: publish → track citations → optimize → republish.

A Webinar for the AI Search Era

To kick off the collaboration, the companies are hosting a joint webinar on November 18 titled:
“How to Rank on ChatGPT: The Overlooked Power of PR.”

The session promises a rare look under the hood, featuring insights from over 1 million AI citations tracked across leading generative engines. Key topics will include:

• Why AI platforms favor news, expert commentary, and third-party editorial content

• Which content categories AI systems cite most frequently—and why

• How strategically placed press coverage influences responses inside ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews

• Why PR—not keyword-stuffed SEO pages—is increasingly the deciding factor in how AI models choose sources

If the data bears out what early GEO experiments are showing, this may become the new norm: PR isn’t just for reputation; it’s for algorithmic visibility.

PR + AI Search Analytics: A Unified Stack

The real significance of the Press Ranger–OtterlyAI partnership lies in how the tools complement each other.

Press Ranger: Expanding the Content Footprint

Press Ranger helps brands secure placements in publications that AI engines already view as authoritative. Unlike social posts or brand blogs—sources generative engines tend to downrank—earned media carries weight.

As CEO Steve Beyatte puts it, “Press Ranger has a proven track record of securing placements in top publications that AI engines frequently cite.”

That track record is increasingly valuable as AI engines continue to prioritize trusted editorial sources.

OtterlyAI: Monitoring the AI Landscape in Real Time

OtterlyAI tracks how brands appear—or don’t—across a growing range of AI search platforms. For marketers struggling to understand how AI is summarizing their brand, where competitors are gaining ground, or how citations are changing as models update, OtterlyAI offers:

• automated AI search visibility tracking

• competitor benchmarking

• historical change detection

• platform-specific ranking insights

Thousands of marketers already rely on it, and its free “visibility audit” feature gives brands a low-friction way to see exactly where they stand inside major AI engines.

GEO Becomes Mainstream

A partnership like this would have sounded niche two years ago. Today, GEO is rapidly becoming part of the standard digital marketing mix.

Here’s why:

1. AI search is siphoning traffic from traditional search engines.

Generative engines reduce the need to click through to external sites, concentrating visibility among a small subset of highly cited sources.

2. PR is becoming algorithmic.

Brands can no longer rely on SEO pages alone; they need third-party validation to influence AI summaries.

3. Data-driven PR is now essential.

Marketers are demanding quantitative visibility tracking—not guesswork—when measuring the impact of earned media.

4. Authority is becoming the new currency.

AI responses heavily weight credible publications, making PR a differentiator for brands that want to break out of obscurity.

Press Ranger and OtterlyAI are clearly leaning into this trend, creating a stack that blends PR placement, authority building, and AI search analytics into one motion. It’s a sign that GEO strategy is evolving from experimental to operational.

The Industry Implications

This partnership hints at where PR and SEO are heading:

• PR teams will start caring about AI citations the same way they once obsessed over backlinks.

• Content strategies will favor formats that AI engines interpret as trustworthy, such as news articles, expert commentary, and authoritative guides.

• Monitoring tools for AI platforms will become as common as Google Analytics, especially as search behaviors shift away from traditional engines.

• GEO may rise as a standalone discipline, parallel to SEO and PR, requiring its own strategies, metrics, and tools.

For marketers struggling to understand why their brand isn’t appearing in AI-generated responses—or why competitors are—the Press Ranger–OtterlyAI combination provides both the why and the how to fix it.

What Comes Next

As AI engines continue to evolve, so will the tactics needed to influence them. Press Ranger’s distribution network and OtterlyAI’s search monitoring capabilities represent a logical pairing, but the real test will be adoption across marketing teams.

If brands begin treating AI citations as a core KPI, as they once did backlinks, GEO could quickly move from a niche discipline to a mainstream requirement. And partnerships like this could form the backbone of that shift.

For now, the message is clear: in the age of generative AI, visibility isn’t just about ranking—it’s about being referenced. And PR may be the most powerful lever marketers have to shape those references.

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