PR's New KPI: Getting Cited by AI
Razor Sharp PR has released "The No-Nonsense Guide to Getting Cited by AI," a white paper built from two years of watching how assistants answer billions of questions. The takeaway is direct: AI doesn't just summarize the web - it decides who gets named. If you're not cited, you're invisible.
"The deeper disruption is not AI's ability to generate or summarize content, but its power to decide which brands to cite, which to ignore, and how authority is defined in the process," said Ray Young, Founder and President of Razor Sharp PR. Their analysis found that third-party coverage in news and blogs drives the majority of citations across leading assistants.
Why this matters to PR and Comms
Your brand authority now lives in two places: what you publish and what credible outlets publish about you. Assistants weigh both - and assistants are fast becoming the default first touch for research, problem-solving, and vendor shortlists.
If you're only optimizing for Google rankings or static keyword lists, you're leaving share of voice - and revenue - on the table.
The framework: Metrics built for AI visibility
The white paper introduces proprietary metrics to measure your presence inside AI answers:
- Share of Answer™: The percentage of answers for a topic where your brand is cited, referenced, or linked.
- Sub-Query Rank™: Your position when assistants break a question into parts (e.g., "best tools," "implementation steps," "pricing").
Together, they give PR teams a concrete way to spot gaps, prioritize pitches, and prove impact beyond web traffic.
Seven strategies for earning AI citations
- Get into AI's sources and long-term memory: Win credible news/blog coverage and maintain a consistent footprint that assistants can recall.
- Publish within hours, not weeks: Speed beats polish when the market moves. Issue updates the day the story breaks.
- Answer the full question: Anticipate adjacent needs (definitions, trade-offs, pricing, implementation, alternatives) in one place.
- Offer unique data or synthesis: Original research, datasets, or expert roundups that don't exist elsewhere get cited.
- Map content to business models and buyer journeys: Create assets for researchers, evaluators, and decision-makers - differently.
- Make content machine-readable: Ensure bots can access pages, parse structure, and extract facts. Clean markup and clear headings help.
- Track Share of Answer™ and Sub-Query Rank™ versus competitors: Use the data to focus outreach and content sprints where they'll move the needle.
What to do this quarter
- Run an AI citation audit: Ask leading assistants a representative set of buyer questions. Log where you're cited, how often, and in which sub-answers.
- Launch a "newsroom" cadence: Ship timely briefs the same day an industry shift happens. Follow with a deeper explainer in 48-72 hours.
- Pitch for third-party validation: Target reporters and analysts covering your niche. Supply exclusive data or case studies that make their stories better.
- Package facts for machines and humans: Clear headers, concise summaries, FAQs, and consistent naming. Avoid gated content for cornerstone explainers.
- Verify access: Fix robots.txt barriers, slow pages, broken links, and paywalls on reference pieces you want cited.
- Measure, then prioritize: Use Share of Answer™ to pick five topics where you can move from "uncited" to "consistently cited" in 90 days.
The compounding advantage
Teams that win owned content and third-party coverage together build authority that compounds. "The gap between cited and uncited brands will only widen," said Ethan Young, VP of Technology at Razor Sharp PR. The lesson: ship fast, earn coverage, and feed assistants facts they can trust.
Get the white paper
The full guide - with methods, scorecards, and examples - is available at www.razorsharppr.com. It's licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Who is Razor Sharp PR
Razor Sharp PR helps organizations produce, publish, and place the right content at the right time - built for how assistants source answers. The firm was a finalist for the 2025 Ragan PR Daily Award for Thought Leadership Communications and has guided hundreds of campaigns tied to sales, funding, and internal alignment.
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