Gideon Katz
10 June 2026
How to use Digital PR to boost your brand’s LLM visibility
If you work in Digital PR, you've probably noticed a shift in how people search. More and more are skipping Google and asking LLMs (such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude) for answers and recommendations instead. That raises a new question for clients: when someone asks an LLM about my industry, does my brand get a mention? And more importantly, what does it say?
The good news is that Digital PR is one of the most powerful levers you have for influencing LLM visibility. The not-so-good news is that the old playbook needs a few tweaks. Here are four tactics that can help you get your clients cited where it counts.
1: Use third-party tools to track and reverse-engineer visibility
You can't improve what you can't measure, and LLM visibility is no exception. A growing number of third-party tools now let you track exactly how your client is showing up across AI platforms and what LLMs are using to produce responses, so you're not just guessing. A few that have worked nicely for us are:
Peec.ai
Ayima ChatGPT Path
Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker
The best of these tools does a few things at once. They monitor your client's current visibility across the major LLMs, give you a read on brand sentiment (is the AI talking about your client positively, or flagging the same old criticisms?), and crucially, they reveal which specific domains and URLs are being cited for the search queries that matter most to your client.
That last point is where it gets really useful for PRs. Once you can see which publications LLMs are pulling from for priority queries, you can effectively reverse-engineer a media list. Instead of pitching blind, you're targeting the exact outlets that already influence what the AI platforms say. It's a much smarter way to build outreach lists, and it turns an already difficult-to-monitor KPI into something you can actually report on.
Resource: for more information on integrating AI into Digital PR strategies, we produced an AI in Digital PR Whitepaper here
2: Be aware of which publications actually allow LLMs to use their content
Not every publication is open to LLM crawlers. Many sites block specific AI bots, which means a hard-won piece of coverage might never make it into an LLM's training or retrieval data. This is where an AI-openness script earns its keep.
There are two ways to put one to work. First, you can feed in your client's existing backlink profile (and their competitors') to reveal which publications and domains are open to the various LLM bots: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, AIO and so on. This is gold from a reporting angle if LLM visibility has become a new KPI, and equally handy for competitor analysis, showing you where rivals are gaining ground.
Second, you can use the same approach to build an AI-friendly media list from scratch, ensuring every publication you target is actually open to LLM bots before you spend time pitching. It's a simple step that stops you wasting effort on coverage that AI platforms will never see.
3: Don’t sleep on regional and local press
Here's a tactic that's easy to overlook: regional and local news publications are some of the most frequently cited domains across LLMs. They punch well above their weight, and they offer a genuine opportunity to get your client mentioned, often more easily than national titles.
This is especially valuable for clients in the travel sector or anyone offering services tied to a specific area. A local angle gives LLMs exactly the kind of geographically relevant, authoritative source they like to pull from when answering location-based queries.
For one of our UK travel clients, we include location-specific seasonal press releases into our monthly activity, ensuring that we continue to engage with journalists (and communities) on an ongoing basis.
One thing worth understanding here is that a recency bias is worked into a lot of LLM answers. AI platforms tend to favour fresher content, which means a single burst of regional coverage won't keep working forever. To get lasting value, regional press needs to be a continuous part of your organic strategy rather than a one-off campaign. Keep the coverage coming, and you keep your client in the conversation.
4: Make the most of other customer touchpoints
LLMs don't pull their answers from traditional media alone. ChatGPT and others increasingly root out information across a whole range of platforms, which means your strategy shouldn't stop at securing press coverage.
Wherever you can, lean into other customer touchpoints: social media, YouTube and Reddit are all fair game. These platforms let you engage with potential customers at different stages of their purchasing journey, and because LLMs draw on them too, a strong presence there can feed directly into how your client is represented in AI answers. Reddit in particular has become a go-to source for AI platforms, so a genuine, helpful presence in the right communities can go a long way.
The trick is to think holistically. The more touchpoints your client shows up across, the more material LLMs have to draw on, and the more likely they are to surface your brand.
So, are you ready to optimise your clients for LLMs?
LLM visibility is fast becoming one of the most important things a Digital PR team can influence, and the brands that get ahead now will be the ones LLMs recommend tomorrow. By tracking your visibility with the right tools, building AI-friendly media lists, leaning into regional press, and showing up across multiple customer touchpoints, you can give your clients a real edge in this new search landscape.
If you're ready to get LLMs talking about your brand, or just want to know more about strategies for AI visibility, feel free to reach out.
This post was written by Gideon Katz, Digital PR Strategist at Distinctly.
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