PR INSIGHTS

Public relations and marketing are often seen as the same thing, especially in smaller teams where one person often covers both. While they are related disciplines that serve the same commercial goal, they are not interchangeable. Marketing exists to create demand and drive sales, while PR exists to shape and protect how your organisation is perceived. Confusing the two creates a muddled strategy, misplaced budget and the wrong definition of success.

PR and SEO used to follow different roads. PR built reputation and relationships. SEO built rankings and backlinks. Different teams, metrics and briefs, until now. The rise of AI search has changed things, and the two now share a single objective: building the digital authority that search engines and AI platforms use when deciding which sources to trust, cite and surface.

AI search is changing how audiences discover brands, evaluate authority and engage with media coverage. For public relations teams, this is a shift that directly affects which placements matter, which journalists to prioritise and how to measure the impact of their work.

Online reputation management (ORM) is the process of monitoring, influencing and improving how an organisation is perceived across digital platforms, including search results, review sites, social media, news coverage and AI-generated responses. ORM is a broad, cross-departmental concern for enterprise businesses in 2026, and must be treated as such, rather than be seen as a task for the communications team.