Twelve months ago, a PR pitch had one audience: a journalist scanning an inbox. Today, that same pitch may be summarised, ranked and cross-checked by an AI tool before a journalist ever reads it in full. AI media relations is no longer an emerging trend to watch. For most newsrooms, it is already the default way stories get found, checked and written.
For communications teams, this shift changes more than workflow. It changes what makes a pitch, a spokesperson or a piece of owned content worth surfacing in the first place.
The rise of AI media relations
According to Muck Rack’s 2026 State of Journalism Report, 82% of journalists now use at least one AI tool in their work, up from 77% the previous year. ChatGPT leads adoption at 47%, followed by Gemini at 22% (nearly double its 2025 share) and Claude at 12%, which has doubled year-on-year. Transcription tools sit at 40% usage.
This is no longer a small group of early adopters. It is the working majority of the journalists most PR teams pitch every week.
What has changed is not just how journalists write. It is how they research, verify and decide what is worth their time before they ever pick up the phone.
How AI is changing the way journalists find sources
Journalists have always relied on background research before committing to a story. AI tools now compress that research into seconds; summarising a company’s public record, cross-referencing past coverage and surfacing whichever spokesperson, report or quote is easiest to find and verify online.
This means the organisations and experts who show up clearly, consistently and credibly across the web are the ones most likely to be considered at all. A brand with thin public information, inconsistent commentary or no clear point of view is simply harder for both a journalist and an AI tool to place with confidence.
We explored this shift in detail in From SEO to GEO: Why brands must optimise for AI answers, and the same logic now applies directly to media relations. Being easy to find is no longer enough. Organisations need to be easy to verify.
The pitch still has to earn its place
None of this makes the pitch less important. If anything, it raises the bar.
Muck Rack’s research found that 86% of journalists say PR pitches inspire at least some of their stories, while 88% immediately discard pitches that fall outside their beat. AI tools may help a journalist triage their inbox faster, but they have not lowered the standard for relevance. They have raised the cost of getting it wrong.
At the same time, 26% of journalists now cite “unchecked AI” as a top industry concern, up from 18% the year before, and disinformation ties for the top perceived threat to the profession at 32%. Journalists are using AI more, but they are also more alert to inaccurate or unverifiable information moving through their workflow. A pitch built on vague claims or unverifiable statistics is now more likely to be caught, not less.
Six shifts PR teams need to make
Adapting to AI media relations does not mean abandoning the fundamentals of good media relations. It means applying them with more discipline.
1. Build a citable owned-media presence
Websites, leadership bios and press pages should give both journalists and AI tools a clear, structured, accurate account of who you are and what you know. If it isn’t published clearly on your own platform, it is much harder for it to be surfaced anywhere else.
2. Treat every pitch as a potential AI input
Write pitches assuming they may be summarised or checked by a tool, not just read by a person. Precise facts, clear attribution and verifiable sources matter more than clever framing.
3. Prioritise credibility over speed
Sending information faster is not an advantage if it is wrong. A single inaccurate claim can undermine a source’s credibility with a journalist for good.
4. Make experts easy to find and quote
Clear author bios, consistent titles and well-structured commentary make it easier for a journalist, or an AI tool assisting them, to confirm who your spokesperson is and why they are credible.
5. Monitor how your brand appears in AI-generated answers
Search rankings are no longer the only measure of visibility. Communications teams should be asking what AI tools say about their organisation when a journalist, or anyone else, asks.
6. Don’t abandon relationship-building
AI can speed up research, but it does not replace trust built over years of accurate, reliable engagement with a journalist. Relationships remain the reason a journalist picks up the phone in the first place.
Measuring AI media relations, not just media coverage
Most PR reporting still centres on clip counts, reach and sentiment drawn from traditional coverage. That remains useful, but it no longer tells the full story of how an organisation is being discovered.
Communications teams should now be asking a parallel set of questions. When a journalist, analyst or customer asks an AI tool about our category, are we mentioned at all? Is the information that comes back accurate and current? Are our spokespeople described correctly, with the right titles and areas of expertise? Are competitors appearing in that answer instead of us, and if so, why?
None of these questions have a single, standardised metric yet. But asking them regularly, and tracking how the answers change over time, gives communications teams an early view of a visibility layer that traditional media monitoring simply wasn’t built to see.
What this means for media relations going forward
AI media relations is not a separate discipline from traditional media relations. It is traditional media relations operating inside a faster, more scrutinised information environment. The organisations that treat accuracy, clarity and credibility as non-negotiable will find AI tools working in their favour. Those that don’t will find their gaps exposed faster than ever before.
We covered the broader shift this represents for the profession in PR Before AI and PR After AI: The Biggest Shift in Communications in 20 Years. Media relations is simply where that shift is now most visible, pitch by pitch.
Frequently asked questions
What is AI media relations?
AI media relations refers to the growing use of artificial intelligence tools, by both journalists and communications professionals, to research, verify, summarise and manage information involved in securing media coverage.
Are journalists using AI to check PR pitches?
Muck Rack’s 2026 State of Journalism Report found that 82% of journalists use at least one AI tool in their work. While the report doesn’t isolate pitch-checking specifically, journalists increasingly use AI for research, transcription and background verification, all of which touch how a pitch is assessed.
Does AI make PR pitches less important?
No. The same research found that 86% of journalists say pitches inspire at least some of their stories, while 88% discard pitches outside their beat. Relevance and accuracy matter as much as ever, if not more.
How can PR teams prepare for AI media relations?
By publishing clear, accurate and well-structured information about their organisation and spokespeople, treating every pitch as something that may be verified by a tool as well as a person, and continuing to invest in genuine journalist relationships.
