Why PR’s Next Audience Might Be AI

For most of its 25-year history, M+C Saatchi Talk’s job has been relatively simple to explain: get people talking about brands. But the conversation has acquired a new audience – and it doesn’t read magazines, scroll Instagram, or watch TV in quite the same way we do.

AI is increasingly sitting between people and the information they use to make decisions. And when it comes to answering questions about brands, it isn’t simply listening to what those brands say about themselves. It is drawing on the wider web – editorial coverage, reviews, expert opinion, creator content, and community conversations – to work out what a brand is, what it stands for and whether it is worth recommending.

That is the thinking behind The Conversation Converter, a new strategic framework launched by M+C Saatchi Talk as it celebrates its 25th anniversary. Its premise is that PR, search, content, and AI discoverability are no longer neatly separable disciplines. The conversation a brand earns can become part of the information infrastructure through which it is subsequently discovered.

It is an intriguing proposition because it shifts the ambition of PR. The objective is no longer simply to generate coverage, reach or even conversation, but to build the authority that determines what happens next – whether a brand is found, trusted, recommended and ultimately chosen.

Here, M+C Saatchi Talk managing director Amaya Alvarez explains the thinking behind The Conversation Converter, how it changes the way brands should plan communications, and why, in the AI era, earned media may be moving from an output of marketing to an input into discovery.

In layman’s terms, what is The Conversation Converter, how does it work, and what would a client actually get from using it?

The Conversation Converter is a proprietary planning tool that serves as a catch-all for all of the conversations we influence. From those with media as our first frontier, to those consumers are having with AI.

It’s the next step on from getting brands talked about. Today, we’re not just influencing people, we’re also influencing the information AI uses.

Independent, high authority coverage gives AI signals about what a brand is, what it stands for and whether it’s credible enough to recommend.

The Conversation Converter brings together the science of being discovered by machines with the craft of designing AI optimised PR. Using proprietary data stacks we can define the conversations a brand needs to be part of, create the right stories to earn a place in the answer AI’s memory and measure the impact; we can now build a more memorable chain of influence according to authority,

For a client, the key difference is having PR, search, content and AI discoverability considered as part of one connected strategy rather than as separate activities.

What has changed about the way people discover and choose brands that makes this framework necessary now?

Discovery is no longer a straightforward journey from Google search to website to purchase. People are increasingly discovering, researching and comparing brands through AI platforms, social content, creators, reviews and editorial coverage, often without ever reaching a brand’s own channels.

That matters because those third-party conversations don’t only influence the person reading them. They also contribute to the information that search engines and AI platforms use to understand brands and determine which ones to surface or recommend.

So PR, search, social and content increasingly influence the same customer journey. Planning them in isolation makes less sense when consumers, and the technology helping them make decisions, don’t experience them that way.

You argue that earned media is becoming more important because AI systems use third-party sources to understand brands. Can you explain exactly how that works, with a real example?

At its simplest, AI platforms don’t understand a brand solely through what that brand says about itself. They draw on information and signals from across the wider web — including editorial coverage, retailer pages, reviews, expert commentary and community conversations - when forming recommendations.

Beauty is a really good example of this because consumers are already asking AI very specific questions such as “What’s the best vitamin C serum for sensitive skin?” or “What’s a good foundation for dry skin?”

The AI isn’t simply looking at which brand has the best product page. It’s trying to synthesise the available information to work out which products are credible and relevant to that particular need.

Recent research into beauty AI search found that ChatGPT draws on sources including Reddit, Who What Wear, Wikipedia, Sephora and Allure when making beauty recommendations.

You can see the effect in brands such as The Ordinary and CeraVe. Their strength in AI recommendations isn't simply a result of the brands talking about themselves. They have built strong associations around particular ingredients, skin concerns and product benefits that are reinforced across retailers, editorial coverage, expert commentary and consumer conversations. One 2026 analysis found The Ordinary and CeraVe among the leading beauty brands in AI citation share, particularly for ingredient-led skincare questions.

That is the important shift for PR. If we want an AI system to understand a beauty brand as, say, an authority in a particular ingredient or solution, it isn't enough for the brand to make that claim on its own website. We need to earn that association across the wider information ecosystem.

So PR becomes part of the infrastructure of discovery: we're not just trying to get the consumer to see the story; we're helping create the signals that an AI system can see, understand and ultimately use when it recommends a brand.

And that's why we talk about earned media moving from an output to an input into discovery.

What does “conversation” actually mean in The Conversation Converter and how do you measure whether a conversation has actually contributed to business growth?

Conversation is broader than media coverage. It encompasses the credible stories, recommendations, reviews, creator content and wider cultural discussion that shape how a brand is understood by both people and AI platforms.

The principle behind the framework is that we shouldn’t stop at measuring whether a brand generated coverage or conversation. The Convert stage is designed to understand how that activity translates into discoverability, authority and ultimately commercial outcomes because AI allows us to measure the chain of influence.

We can now delve deeper into what happens next and determine the impact of that conversation because we have built a more memorable chain of influence, allowing us to measure authority, discoverability, recommendation and choice.

How does the framework differ from what already exists?

The key difference is that it doesn’t treat PR, SEO, content, and AI optimisation as separate disciplines. It starts from the premise that they are increasingly influencing the same thing: whether a brand is visible, credible and recommended when somebody is making a decision.

Rather than measuring earned media purely as a communications output, The Conversation Converter looks at its role in building authority and discoverability across both human and AI audiences, and connects that back to commercial impact.

It also creates a continuous loop. Discover identifies where the opportunity lies, Amplify turns that intelligence into stories and content, and Convert measures the impact and feeds those learnings back into what happens next.

Can you give an example of a brand problem that The Conversation Converter would solve that conventional PR or communications planning might miss?

Imagine a brand with strong awareness and regular media coverage, but which isn’t appearing when people ask AI platforms for recommendations within its category. A conventional PR plan might conclude that communications are performing well because the brand is generating coverage and reach.

The Conversation Converter would look more broadly at what conversations and sources are shaping discovery in that category, how the brand is being understood across earned media, search and AI, and where there are gaps between the conversations it is generating and the information people are actually seeking.

A good example would be a skincare brand launching a new serum.

A conventional PR plan might start with the product proposition: what is new, what is the hero ingredient, what is the campaign idea, and which journalists and creators can we get talking about it? That can generate plenty of coverage — but it doesn’t necessarily mean the brand will be discovered when a consumer asks an AI platform a relevant question.

The Conversation Converter starts somewhere different. It asks: what questions do we need to earn our way into?

So, rather than simply trying to create awareness around a new serum, we might identify the high-value questions consumers are asking — for example, “What’s the best serum for sensitive skin?”, “What ingredients help with barrier repair?” or “What’s the best affordable retinol alternative?”

We then look at what currently informs the answers to those questions: which publications are being cited, which experts are trusted, what competitors are associated with the category, what language is being used, and where there are gaps or opportunities for our brand to establish authority.

That could fundamentally change the PR plan. Instead of one launch story, we might build a series of earned stories, expert commentary, reviews and cultural conversations designed to establish the brand around particular needs, ingredients or areas of expertise.

So the problem we're solving isn't simply “How do we get this product talked about?”

It's “How do we make sure the right people - and the AI systems increasingly influencing their decisions - encounter the right information about this brand when it matters?”

That's the difference between conventional communications planning and Conversation Converter. We're moving from planning around outputs and audiences to planning around conversations, questions and discovery moments - and then building the earned media strategy to influence them.

If you had to explain the central insight behind The Conversation Converter in one sentence to a CMO, what would you say?

The conversations you earn today increasingly determine whether your brand is discovered, trusted and recommended tomorrow, by people and by AI.