Gartner Says PR Budgets Will Double by 2027. AI Search Is Why

"Gartner predicts that earned media budgets will double by 2027, rooted in a behavioral shift that's already well underway: AI is replacing traditional search as the primary way people discover brands, and AI relies heavily on earned media."

"According to Similarweb, ChatGPT traffic more than doubled year-over-year in 2024 and weekly active users tripled between late 2024 and early 2026. Google traffic declined in the same period. When deciding which brand to buy, an increasing number of consumers are turning to AI platforms. Clicking through pages of results and opening countless tabs has started to feel archaic. Instead, people are immediately getting a short list-and trusting it."

"Similarweb's ecommerce data puts the conversion rate for ChatGPT-referred visits at 11.4 percent, versus 5.3 percent for organic search. AI search visitors arrive with a recommendation. And that short list isn't tied to your ad spend. Research from Muck Rack shows that roughly 94 percent of links cited in AI-generated answers come from non-paid sources, with half of all AI citations drawing from content published in the last 11 months."

"Google's model rewards optimization: the right keywords, backlinks, and technical architecture. Marketers learned to reverse-engineer it, and an entire industry built itself around search engine optimization. AI platforms work differently"

Paid media has long dominated marketing budgets while PR received remaining resources. Earned media budgets are predicted to double by 2027 as AI replaces traditional search for brand discovery. AI platforms depend heavily on earned media and provide users with short, trusted recommendations instead of long lists of results. Traffic to ChatGPT has risen sharply while Google traffic has declined, and ChatGPT-referred visits show higher ecommerce conversion rates than organic search. Most links cited in AI-generated answers come from non-paid sources, with many citations drawn from recent content. Users also create structured “projects” to source quality items, favoring brands with strong reputations. AI platforms learn from information rather than ranking via keyword optimization alone.

Read at Inc