The New AI Search Paradigm: Understanding PESO and Public Relations - A 3 Part Series

A Guide to AI for SMBs, Entrepreneurs and Enterprises

Welcome to part one of a three-part series exploring the PESO Model in the Age of AI.

Congratulations, you’ve been a savvy communicator about your business - and you may not even know it.

Many small-to-mid-sized businesses (SMBs) entrepreneurs and enterprises may be surprised to learn they’ve been actively leveraging the PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned) marketing strategy for their company’s growth and success.

For every social media promoted post (paid), every authentic news feature secured (earned media, the realm of public relations)—then amplified in newsletters, websites, and social channels (shared)—and every company blog post written (owned), companies boost their digital presence.

But now a new era is here. Artificial intelligence (AI) and its close companion generative engine optimization (GEO) have arrived—and they have not only reshaped how PESO fits into the marketing tool kit, but how the digital world sees your company through the digital lens. As a result, it’s vital to understand how content reaches audiences, and how it is perceived and indexed by AI. This is where the earned media - public relations - part of the strategy shines; as authentic media coverage is the high-value search indexing gold that generative engine optimization highlights in its quest for quality and authenticity in AI-powered search rankings

Let’s take a minute now and explore how the PESO model integrates with GEO and the concept of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) from a real-world SMB and enterprise lens.

Let’s also take a look at some real-world examples for a first-hand look at how AI and GEO are reshaping the world of digital search, marketing, and PESO to drive SMB, entrepreneur, and enterprise success.

SMBs and Entrepreneurs: Welcome to the World of AI-Powered Search and GEO

SMBs, along with larger entreprises, face a double marketing challenge in the new world of AI-driven search results:

● Competition: Competing with larger brands for visibility.

● Zero clicks: Navigating AI-powered landscapes where search results are often not organized by what we’ve come to know as “clicks,” but rather answers coming directly through AI instead of links.

GEO emphasizes content AI can digest and pull into answers, while E-E-A-T provides the foundational credibility layer AI looks for. Together, they shift how SMBs and all companies should think about communications and the PESO mix because:

● Paid media is not necessarily loved by AI.

● Earned media, such as journalists’ published work, is now one of AI’s most preferred resources.

● Shared media—your social channels and community platforms—is about sustained engagement signals.

● Owned media (e.g., blogs) demands structure, as well as narrative, to be noticed in the AI search world.

A Deeper Dive: What Is Generative Engine Optimization?

Generative Engine Optimization is the art and science of structuring content so artificial intelligence—not just traditional search—can understand, extract, and surface it in generated answers. This is a dramatic change from the old, search engine-dominated approach to digital visibility, which relied on do-follow links and domain authority.

Here are the core GEO principles:

● What the user intended: Go beyond keywords to answer why and how users ask questions.

● Go beyond the printed word with adaptive content: Leverage text, video, audio, and interactive formats—AI consumes all.

● Stop the endless posting, AI loves quality, not quantity: One deeply-researched piece is more powerful than many surface-level posts.

● Yes, tech is involved, so don’t be shy about getting help: Schema markup, metadata, and clear tagging help AI parse content.

● AI learns as you learn; you’re both in a continuous feedback/learning experience: AI learns how users engage, so adapt content accordingly.

This sounds great in theory, but how does an entrepreneur put this knowledge to work?

Here are some best practices:

The Big Four: Actionable GEO Practices for SMBs, Entrepreneurs, and Writers

● Use contextual file names for images (e.g., swedish-deli-stockholm-macaroons.jpg). Ensure you have alt text because it’s increasingly read by AI.

● Add captions and transcripts. For your multimedia content, such as videos, helps it become more accessible to AI—and easier for the viewers to follow along.

● Design content in small, digestible “bits” of text with headings like “What’s the average return on PR investment for startups?”

● Conclude sections with wrap-up writing that summarizes what you’ve just shared because they are often lifted for AI summaries.

This is just the beginning. In Part Two of The PESO Model in the Age of AI series, we’ll dive deeper into how Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and E-E-A-T are reshaping credibility and discoverability in AI-driven search—and how your brand can start applying them right now.

By Pam Abrahamsson, Founder and CEO, PRA Public Relations

and Maria Dykstra, Global AI/GEO/SEO Expert, Founder, TreDigital