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Managing brand and reputation in this new AI-driven world is no longer business as usual, it’s a profound recalibration of how information is discovered and consumed. Earned media is king again, but it needs a content queen. Google’s AI Overviews and tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are replacing traditional search results, synthesizing, and summarizing information rather than linking out. The SEO playbook is being rewritten for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). If you dont design content for citation and integration into these models, it risks becoming invisible. THE COMEBACK OF EARNED MEDIA For years, owned channels and direct-to-consumer communication grew. But in the AI era, the pendulum swings back to earned media. Why? AI models find ‘truth’ in credible, third-party validation. New research from Muck Rack’s “Generative Pulse” study, analyzing over 1,000,000 links from AI responses, offers compelling evidence: More than 95% of links cited by AI are from non-paid coverage. Of those, 27% are journalistic content. When queries imply recency (e.g., What are the most innovative products in restaurant tech?), journalism accounts for nearly half (49%) of cited links. AI systems prioritize fresh content, especially for topical, opinion-based, or event-driven queries. Outlet authority matters: High-domain authority outlets like Reuters, Fast Company, Axios, and Bloomberg are frequently cited. Earning strategic mentions and quotes in top-tier outlets isn’t just about brand visibility; it’s about embedding your expertise directly into the AI’s knowledge base to influence AI-generated answers. THE CONTENT QUEEN: YOUR INTEGRATED STRATEGY IMPERATIVE If earned media is king, then robust, AI-optimized owned content is its indispensable queen. Traditional newsrooms face immense pressure, leading to fewer in-depth, high-impact earned coverage opportunities. Communications leaders must balance the rigor of traditional media with the authenticity and engagement of independent voices, while strengthening their direct storytelling channels. Owned content fuels the AI ecosystem, providing direct, unfiltered context that LLMs easily ingest and attribute. Here’s how this integrated strategy comes to life: Engineer for LLM readability: AI models reward precision: Structure content with clear, concise summaries, consistent terminology, and verifiable data. Use explicit questions and answers, bulleted lists, clear subheading, and integrate verifiable data, statistics, and sources Invest in AI-citable formats: The future isn’t just text, though text is essential for GEO. Ensure all podcasts, webinars, and videos have accurate, keyword-rich transcripts, and detailed show notes. Provide underlying data for charts and graphs in structured formats. Strategic distribution: It’s not just about traffic; it’s about citations and summary inclusion. Prioritize high-authority, trusted channels known to be heavily scraped or licensed by LLMs, including news wires (AP, Reuters), industry analyst reports (Gartner), reputable encyclopedic sites (Wikipedia), and platforms like LinkedIn, which Google’s AI Overviews link to frequently. Cross-publish on platforms like Reddit, Medium, and Substack to further optimize. OPTIMIZE YOUR BRAND’S PRESENCE: HOW LLMS SOURCE COMPANY INFORMATION When an LLM is prompted about a company, its products, or leadership, it draws from authoritative, well-structured sources. Your communications strategy must hyper-focus on seeding accurate, compelling narratives in environments where LLMs are trained and sourced. For company-specific information, they primarily look for high-quality, high-authority, and well-structured data: Curated datasets and encyclopedic knowledge: Wikipedia is a primary source for data validation and general knowledge due to its extensive coverage, collaborative editing, and structured, foundational facts. Major news and media outlets: Tier 1 wire services and major news organizations (e.g., The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal) are frequently scraped and licensed by LLMs as they add recency and have formal writing styles and high Domain Authority (DA). Established industry-specific publications and journals: These offer expert insights and formal analysis. Trade press is vital. High-quality corporate websites and official brand pages: Crucial for direct product/service information, official statements, and corporate facts. To optimize your company’s presence for LLMs, consider these strategies: Structural clarity: Ensure your website and public documents are structured with clear headings, consistent terminology, and verifiable data. Amplify executive voices: Our research shows a CEOs reputation directly influences brand trust. Articulate executive perspectives in ways LLMs can attribute, integrate, and share in places they scrape. Earn strategic mentions and quotes: Shift focus from mentions to earning direct quotes or factual inclusions in high-authority news articles and industry reports. Many LLMs prioritize diverse, multi-source citations. A concise, quotable statement from an expert in a reputable publication is gold. Double check foundational reference points: Ensure a well-sourced, accurate Wikipedia entry or other reference page about your company, founders, or products. Proactive monitoring and correction: LLMs are still prone to hallucinations. Regularly audit how your company is described and implement a rapid response protocol to correct AI-generated misinformation. The dynamic AI environment demands communicators understand what LLMs read, and how they interpret and synthesize brand information. By using intentional content structure, distribution, and third-party validation, you can ensure your company’s narrative is accurately and effectively represented in the AI era. THE FULL SPECTRUM OF INFLUENCE: BEYOND GEO AI is no longer an emerging trend; its an operational reality. Those who balance traditional earned media’s rigor with owned content’s authenticity will not only navigate this complex new media world but also help define it. GEO is a powerful, but not exclusive, lever for influence. While indispensable, it’s not a magic wand. Many audiences don’t primarily use generative AI tools for information discovery, preferring channels like newsletters, direct social media, in-depth podcasts, and YouTube. Human-curated content sources like paywalled Substacks are also not extensively scraped or licesed by large language models. A modern communications program understands this broader ecosystem and includes a holistic strategy that integrates GEO while doubling down on direct-to-audience engagement. By embracing this approach, you ensure your brand’s message resonates authentically, building trust and influence across all channels where stakeholders seek information. Tyler Perry is co-CEO of Mission North.
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E-Commerce
Its March 2028 and Dr. Sarah Chen is having her morning coffee in her San Francisco apartment while managing a global education nonprofit that reaches 2.3 million children across 47 countries. Her team? Seven people. Her annual budget? Less than what most traditional nonprofits spend on rent. Sarah is fictional but the operating model she represents is already emerging in 2025. AI-native nonprofits, which integrate AI into the design of their programs, infrastructure, and culture from inception, enabling them to work with greater speed, efficiency, and scale, will outperform traditional ones. These organizations are designed to scale like software companies, with AI handling operations, reporting, and service delivery. They’re faster, cheaper, and in many cases, more effective than legacy players. Every fictional scenario below is grounded in real trends and technologies already in motion. 2026: AI agents collect real-time impact data It’s January 2026, and the first ever AI-enabled Impact Transparency Report reveals that voice AI systems have been calling beneficiaries of 127 global nonprofits, asking them simple questions: “Did this program actually help you? How? Can you give us an example?” The results shatter everything we thought about nonprofit effectiveness. The report reveals that organizations that looked identical on papersame budgets, metrics, and glossy annual reportsshow wildly different real-world impact. Programs that report reaching 50,000 people changed only 200 lives. Meanwhile, programs that claim modest numbers created ripple effects across entire communities. By spring 2026, something unprecedented happens: Funders start asking for real impact data, in real time. Not workshop attendance, not materials distributed, but real change in people’s lives. Something that was too expensive for most nonprofits to track in pre-AI era becomes commonly available because of AI agents. “Real Impact OS” becomes the nonprofit sector’s equivalent of Google Analyticsexcept instead of tracking website clicks, it tracks if lives are improved. This real-time impact data allows the program to increase funding by 340%. 2027: The intelligence explosion Meanwhile nonprofits no longer need to employ traditional case workers. Instead, a three-person team can focus entirely on relationships and strategic decisions while AI agents handle intake interviews, skills assessments, job matching, and follow-up support. The per-person cost is now 70% lower than traditional programs, but the success rate is 40% higher. This is the year organizations start thinking like software companies: build once, deploy everywhere. By fall 2027, the “AI Native Ventures” incubator in London has launched 200 social impact organizations. Each follows the same playbook: identify a proven intervention, adapt it using AI for local context, launch with minimal human oversight, and scale rapidly. 2028: The tipping point By January 2028, the transformation becomes undeniable. A major international study shows that “AI-native nonprofits” are achieving 300-500% better cost-effectiveness ratios than traditional organizations. But the real shift isn’t in the numbers: It’s in how problems get solved. When a humanitarian crisis hits South Asia in February 2028, the response looks nothing like the chaotic coordination of previous disasters. Within hours, AI systems process satellite imagery, translate emergency information into local dialects, and coordinate resources across 47 aid organizations without coordination meetings The old model of flying in foreign experts and holding endless coordination meetings becomes as obsolete as sending faxes. By year-end 2028, something unprecedented happens: Several nonprofits announce they’re changing focus not because they ran out of funding, but because they succeeded. The “Compound Impact Fund,” launched in 2026, reinvests returns from successful scaling into new challenges. It’s the social sector’s first successful exitorganizations graduating because their work is done. The new ecosystem What emerges by 2028 isn’t just more efficient nonprofitsit’s an entirely different ecosystem. Young people no longer need to choose between tech careers and creating social impact. The artificial distinction between for-profit and nonprofit becomes meaningless when organizations achieve massive scale with tiny budgets. The old funding modelwhere organizations spent 60% of their time writing grants and 40% doing workreverses. AI handles grant applications, impact reporting, and donor communications. Humans spend their time on strategy, relationships, and breakthrough innovations. This future is being built today This transformation isnt waiting for 2028its happening now. And its already being recognized on global stages. Switzerland-based, Spring ACTs Sophia chatbot supports survivors of domestic violence in 172 countries, offering 24/7, anonymous guidance in more than 20 languages, helping users understand their rights, explore safe options, and securely store evidence without leaving a trace. It recently won the Pro Bono Collaboration Award at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva. In India and beyond, CareNX Innovations Fetosense is reducing maternal and infant mortality with a portable, AI-powered fetal monitoring system that detects distress early in low-resource settings. Deployed in over 2,500 clinics across six countries and credited with a 30% drop in NICU admissions, it earned the AI for People Award at the Summit. In India, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria, Farmer.Chat is delivering AI-powered, hyper-local agricultural advice via text, voice, and video to over 460,000 smallholder farmersmost of them womenhelping boost yields, adapt to climate shifts, and access markets. The platform was awarded the AI for Prosperity Award at the Summit. Smart funders are already repositioning. Google committed $30 million through its Generative AI Accelerator this year to help nonprofits worldwide harness AI for their communities, offering $500,000 to over $2 million per organization plus pro bono support and technical training. Final thoughts The organizations that will lead this transformation are making decisions today about tomorrow’s capabilities. They’re not asking, “How can AI help us write better grants?” They’re asking, “How would we redesign our entire theory of change if intelligence was abundant and deployment was instant?” The transformation is happening with or without your organization. The only question is: Which sie of the revolution will you be on Jacek Siadkowski is CEO of Tech To The Rescue.
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E-Commerce
Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed Wednesday at a Utah college event in an act that drew renewed attention to the threat of political violence across the United States. The death was announced on social media by Trump, who praised the 31-year-old Kirk, the co-founder and CEO of the youth organization Turning Point USA, as Great, and even Legendary. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie, Trump posted on his Truth Social account. The suspected shooter has not been arrested, Orem, Utah, Mayor David Young said. A person who was taken into custody by law enforcement at the university where Kirk was speaking was not the suspect, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly. Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans The American Comeback and Prove Me Wrong. A single shot rings out and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away. The AP was able to confirm the videos were taken at Sorensen Center courtyard on the Utah Valley University campus. Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political organization. Immediately before the shooting, Kirk was taking questions for an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence. Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years? an audience member asked. Kirk responded, Too many. The questioner followed up: Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years? Counting or not counting gang violence? Kirk asked. Then a single shot rang out. Utah Valley University said the campus was immediately evacuated and remained closed. Classes were canceled until further notice. Those still on campus were asked to stay in place until police officers could safely escort them off campus. Armed officers walked around the neighborhood bordering the campus, knocking on doors and asking for information on the shooter. Officers have been seen looking at a photo on their phones and showing it to people to see if they recognize a person of interest. The event, billed as the first stop on Kirk’s The American Comeback Tour, had generated a polarizing campus reaction. An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. The university issued a statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue. Last week, Kirk posted on X images of news clips showing his visit to Utah colleges was sparking controversy. He wrote, Whats going on in Utah? The shooting drew swift bipartisan condemnation, with Democratic officials joining Trump, who ordered flags lowered to half-staff and issued a presidential proclamation, and Republican allies of Kirk in decrying the violence. The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last March hosted Kirk on his podcast, posted on X. The murder of Charlie Kirk breaks my heart. My deepest sympathies are with his wife, two young children, and friends, said Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who was wounded in a 2011 shooting in her Arizona district. Though no motive has been disclosed, the circumstances of the shooting fueled concerns that it was part of a spike of political violence that has cut across the political spectrum. The attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade to demand Hamas release hostages, and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvanias governor, who is Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Trump during a campaign rally last year. Former Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who was at the event, said in an interview on Fox News Channel that he heard one shot and saw Kirk go back. It seemed like it was a close shot, Chaffetz said, who seemed shaken as he spoke. He said there was a light police presence at the event and Kirk had some security but not enough. Utah is one of the safest places on the planet, he said. And so we just dont have these types of things. Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by Kirk, then 18, and William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government. It was not an immediate success. But Kirks zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won over an influential set of conservative financiers. Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk served as a personal aide to Donald Trump Jr., the presidents eldest son, during the general election campaign. Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president. Trump and his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point conferences.By Hannah Schoenbaum, Alanna Durkin Richer, and Mark Sherman Richer and Sherman reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Michael Biesecker, Brian Slodysko, Lindsay Whitehurst, Michelle L. Price and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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E-Commerce
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