Ep. 43 Found in AI: What Does It Take To Actually Get Cited in AI Search? (Hint: SEO, PR, and Reputation Management)

In this episode of Found in AI, Cassie sits down with Jonathan Bentz, Growth Strategist at Direct Online Marketing, to challenge one of the longest-standing mantras in marketing: “content is king.” Jonathan makes a compelling case that AI search visibility isn’t a content production problem—it’s a validation problem. 

If your strategy stops at your own website, you’re only giving AI engines one source to work with. Jonathan breaks down the three disciplines that need to work together for AI visibility—SEO, reputation management, and digital PR—and explains why most teams are only doing one of them. Cassie connects his insights back to the FSA Framework and walks through exactly how press releases, review platforms, and unified messaging map to Freshness, Structure, and Authority.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why “content is king” no longer applies to AI search — and what Jonathan means when he calls AI visibility a validation problem
• The three marketing disciplines that need to come together for AI search success, and why SEO alone isn’t enough
• How AI engines use platforms like G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius to build agreement about your brand — and what happens when that agreement isn’t in your favor
• Why press releases are making a comeback as an authority and freshness strategy, even on a shoestring budget
• The role customer service and customer experience now play in how AI engines perceive your brand
• How reputation management has shifted from a defensive play to an offensive AI visibility strategy
• Why unified messaging across PR, marketing, social, and customer support is now a structural signal AI engines rely on
• How Jonathan’s three disciplines map directly to the FSA Framework (Freshness, Structure, Authority), and what to prioritize first if you only have 90 days

Episode Recap: What Does It Actually Take to Get Cited in AI Search?

TL;DR: Getting cited in AI search isn’t a content production problem — it’s a validation problem. In this episode of Found in AI, Jonathan Bentz of Direct Online Marketing breaks down why most teams are approaching AI visibility wrong, and the three disciplines that actually need to work together: SEO, reputation management, and digital PR.

The Big Reframe: It’s Not a Content Problem

I started this conversation by reading back something Jonathan wrote in his guest submission form: “Most teams misunderstand where AI’s trust comes from. They treat AI search as a content production problem.”

And he didn’t back down from that.

Jonathan explained that most of the conversations he’s having with clients right now — whether existing or prospective—start from the same assumption: that AI search is just an extension of on-site content strategy. That if they keep scaling content production and treating their marketing team like a media company, they’ll win in AI the same way they won in traditional SEO.

His response? “I don’t know if that’s the case anymore.”

That line stuck with me. Because he’s not saying content doesn’t matter. He’s saying content alone isn’t enough. And that’s a critical distinction for anyone building an AI search strategy right now.

The Three Disciplines Most Teams Are Missing

This was the core of the conversation. Jonathan broke down what he believes it actually takes to succeed in AI search, and it comes down to three marketing disciplines working together:

“There is an element of traditional SEO that goes along with that… But the other two elements that don’t always get considered if you’re just thinking about SEO are reputation management, what we know traditionally is reputation management, and digital PR. And those three disciplines coming together to form your AI search strategy seems to be the right mix.”

He went further and mapped out the progression brands need to make:

“That seems to be the right mix to go from being an entity, to being a cited, trustworthy entity, and then ultimately a recommended entity when someone is asking the AI tools to recommend a solution, or a service, or a business.”

That progression—entity to cited entity to recommended entity—is something every marketer should have on a whiteboard right now. Because most teams are stuck at step one and wondering why they’re not showing up in AI-generated answers.

Reputation Management: The Discipline Nobody’s Talking About

I asked Jonathan what he meant by reputation management in the context of AI search, and his answer was more specific than I expected. It’s not just about brand sentiment in a general sense. It’s about the platforms AI engines trust most.

“Reddit is one of them… In the SaaS industry, you look at G2 as a mass collection of information… You look at Capterra, you look at TrustRadius… those bots can go out and process all of that information in a structured way and all of that information from one source in an efficient manner. Those platforms now, what is being said on those platforms now matters.”

And then he connected it directly to the trust problem:

“If you have low ratings or bad reviews on some of those mass produced platforms, mass published platforms, you’re going to struggle to have your message trumped over some of those other messages.”

This is huge. Most marketing teams think of G2 and Capterra as sales enablement tools—places where prospects compare vendors. But Jonathan is pointing out that AI engines use these same platforms as trust signals to validate (or invalidate) what your brand claims on its own website.

Customer Service Is Now a GEO Factor

This was a part of the conversation I didn’t plan for, but it went somewhere really interesting. I raised the question of who actually owns GEO within the organization, and we landed on customer service.

Jonathan agreed and expanded on it:

“I think there’s an element of customer service that can play into that… the customer experience, customer support department needs to be mindful of that as they’re crafting their messaging and their communications and how they’re enabling their team to move with autonomy.”

He also made the point about unified messaging across the entire organization:

“Having that core messaging, having that aligned with your PR, your communications, your marketing, all the way down through social, and then even over into customer service and customer experience is a great consideration.”

Think about that for a second. If your customer service team is generating negative reviews because the experience doesn’t match the marketing, AI engines are going to pick up on that gap. Every touchpoint is producing data that models are learning from. This isn’t just a marketing problem anymore—it’s an organizational alignment problem.

Digital PR and Press Releases: The 90-Day Priority

I asked Jonathan the question I ask nearly every guest: if a team could only fix one thing in 90 days to improve their AI visibility, what should they prioritize?

His answer was immediate: digital PR. Specifically, press releases.

“If you are the type of business that only wants to put press releases out if it is content that you expect is going to be picked up by the media, you’re missing the point. With at least in 2026, you’re missing the point.”

He recommended getting on a regular press release cadence — once a month at the very least — and not waiting for blockbuster news to do it:

“Are you making strategic hires? …maybe in the grand scheme of media pickup, that’s only important to the person’s hometown and their regional chamber of commerce that you made a strategic hire, but put that message out onto the web as a whole. Why? Because you get that chance to have your boilerplate republished.”

And then the key insight on why volume matters here:

“You have the ability with that high volume publication to influence what AI search tools are learning about your business.”

This is a frequency play and a consistency play at the same time. Every press release is a chance to get your core message, your brand name, and your positioning republished across hundreds of distribution points. And when AI engines encounter that same message over and over from multiple sources, that becomes the standard.

The Validation Problem: Your Website Is Just One Entity

The moment in this conversation that I keep coming back to is when Jonathan reframed how brands should think about their own website in the context of AI search:

“Your website, the one that you hold so dear when you get people in, to the AI bots, that’s just one entity. There is so much other stuff out there on the internet, and they’re going to use your website, but they’re not going to trust you as the only source of truth.”

That’s the validation problem in one quote. AI engines go out and build agreement from multiple sources. If the only place saying great things about your brand is your own website, that’s not enough. You need the rest of the internet to back you up.

Jonathan framed the solution as a balance between creating volume in a new direction—digital PR, press releases, earned media—and being intentional about building positivity on the platforms AI engines already trust.

How This Maps to the FSA Framework

Everything Jonathan talked about connects directly to the FSA Framework—Freshness, Structure, and Authority.

Freshness is the press release cadence. A regular rhythm of new information hitting the web signals to AI engines that your brand is active and current. You don’t need to wait for a product launch. Strategic hires, events, partnerships—anything that puts your message back into the market counts.

Structure is the unified messaging conversation. When your PR, marketing, social, and customer support teams are all reinforcing the same core message, AI engines can extract it cleanly from any surface. Consistency across channels is a structural signal. And when content is easier to extract, it gets cited more often.

Authority is the throughline of this entire episode. Entity authority doesn’t come from your website alone. It’s built when multiple platforms—G2, Capterra, Reddit, press releases, earned media, podcasts—all point back to the same expertise. Jonathan called it a validation problem. I call it the hardest part of FSA to build. Either way, it’s the piece most teams are missing.

Listen to the Full Conversation

I only scratched the surface here. The full episode goes deeper into how AI engines process review platforms, why the “content is king” era rewarded a completely different set of behaviors than AI search does, and what Jonathan recommends for brands that are starting from scratch.

If we haven’t met yet…

Hi, I’m Cassie, a fractional content strategist for early-stage startups and enterprise brands who focuses on AI search optimization.

I build content programs that connect strategy with execution: clear positioning, systems, and content that actually drive revenue. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start growing, here’s how we can work together.