As a Public Relations firm that prides itself on AMPlifying both the image and presence of the brands we represent, we are excited to showcase AMP3 PR’s 2026 PR Predictions.
AMP3 PR works with clients across fashion, beauty, luxury travel, and entertainment, and we take pride in showing how a boutique NYC agency like ours turns industry shifts into compelling storytelling, smarter editorial strategies, and culturally relevant brand positioning.
GEO Is the New SEO
Earned media continues to play a major role in Generative Search Optimization (GEO). Traditional media remains a priority, since 94% of links cited by AI come from non-paid coverage. While about 25% of those citations are from journalistic sources. Even more, most AI citations for a brand come from only 20 outlets.
In addition, AI strongly prefers recent content. About 50% of citations come from pieces published within the last 11 months. Meaning brands need a steady flow of fresh coverage. Press release citations are also rising, up 5x since July 2025, and structure matters. The releases that get cited tend to include twice as many statistics, 30% more action verbs, and 2.5x more bullet points.
Furthermore, outlet authority matters for GEO. Niche and industry-specific outlets can be just as influential as large, high-authority publications like Reuters and Forbes.
AI models are also consistently shifting how they cite sources. Between July and December 2025, all tested models made notable changes. For example, press release citations increased, management consulting citations declined, and YouTube became dominant in Gemini results.
Lastly, GEO is tied closely to the rise of Generative Shopping. As in-app commerce evolves, AI doesn’t just show products, it recommends, contextualizes, and enables purchases in one moment. This makes PR and GEO essential inputs that shape which brands AI trusts, suggests, and converts.
The Growing Power of Social Commerce & Affiliate Marketing
Influencers and affiliates drove a major share of Black Friday 2025 revenue. Adobe reported that 21.8% of all sales came directly from these partners, showing they’re now core revenue drivers, not add-ons.
They also convert significantly better. Hostinger found that creator and affiliate content delivered 6× higher conversion rates than traditional brand ads due to stronger social proof.
Consumers increasingly prefer recommendations over brand promotion. They’re looking for authenticity, lived experience, and utility. As Clickz noted, Black Friday 2025 proved that brands win when they invest where people actually shop.
Looking ahead to 2026, social commerce has officially collapsed the funnel with discovery, evaluation, and conversion all happening in one place.
Key Takeaway: Brands that integrate influencer, affiliate, and partner strategies into one cohesive commerce engine will outperform those treating them as separate efforts or relying only on organic coverage.
MuckRack’s PR Predictions for 2026
AI is reshaping how people discover brands, pulling heavily from earned media. With creators and journalists driving more influence than ever, PR’s role continues to grow. As Ari Isaacman D’Angelo of Business Insider puts it, “AI is like an open-book test—what matters is what isn’t in the book yet.”
Looking ahead to 2026, pitching norms are shifting. Substack and creator-led outlets are becoming key media partners, and reporters now expect fresh insights and real human impact in every pitch. Personalized, relationship-driven outreach is becoming essential. As Enoma Owens notes, “The most influential outlet in 2026 may be a creator or Substacker.”
AI will also meaningfully save PR teams time. It helps quickly summarize coverage and research, find relevant reporters and topics, and generate angles or simple internal tools.
MuckRack’s State of the Business: 2025 → 2026
In 2025, Muck Rack tackled a key question: What sources are AI systems actually using? Their research showed that 95% of AI citations come from non-paid media, proving that PR was already shaping AI outputs, even as many teams still viewed AI visibility as experimental.
By 2026, the conversation shifts. Instead of asking whether PR influences AI, it becomes clear that PR determines how AI understands your brand. AI is no longer a side channel; it has become a primary discovery tool.
This shift brings a new metric checklist focused on visibility and business impact. Key priorities now include revenue influenced by PR, non-paid customer acquisition, website actions driven by coverage, and LLM/AI answer visibility.
How AI Is Changing How Consumers Shop
Consumer behavior is shifting quickly. According to USA TODAY, 53% of shoppers used or planned to use AI tools for holiday shopping, and 69% said AI was more helpful than traditional methods like emails or flyers. During Thanksgiving–Cyber Monday, AI referrals to top retailers jumped 274% year over year. Generative AI platforms also saw a 76% increase in web visits and a 319% surge in app downloads.
Shoppers are using AI in several ways, whether it’s finding gift ideas and comparing prices to checking coupon codes and clicking AI-generated referral links. Many are also using AI without realizing it through embedded tools and price alerts. As a result, AI has evolved beyond search, it is now a full shopping assistant and referral channel.
This makes PR even more critical. Strong earned media helps ensure the right brands appear when consumers rely on AI to shop.
Social Trends
Search habits are shifting dramatically toward social platforms. According to eMarketer, “46% of Gen Z and 35% of millennials now prefer social media over traditional search engines”. As a result, SEO inside posts, especially on TikTok, matters more than ever for showing up in search results.
At the same time, private online communities are growing. Brands are creating invite-only spaces on Instagram, Discord, and WhatsApp while also following audiences to platforms like Substack and Reddit.
Content strategy is evolving too. As Cool Nerds Marketing notes, “brands that rely only on short-form content risk being forgettable. Long-form builds deeper trust and retention, the two formats aren’t rivals – they work together”. A strong tactic is turning one long video into several short clips and repurposing them across platforms.
Micro and nano creators are also on the rise. Brands are prioritizing creators under 10K followers for their higher engagement, stronger conversion, and lower cost. Audiences trust real people using products far more than one-off ads from mega creators.
Shopping platforms are shifting as well. Forbes reports that “one in five LTK searches includes a brand name, showing shoppers are ready to buy”. LTK caters to larger retailers and creators with bigger budgets, while ShopMy is better suited for smaller or niche brands and link-driven shopping directly from creator posts.
Livestream Commerce Is the Future
The purchase funnel is fading as entertainment and commerce merge. As GaryVee predicted, “Livestream commerce is the future,” and 2025 proved it. Kim Kardashian’s “Kimsmas Live” on TikTok showcased the model: a 45-minute variety show with celebrity guests, QVC-style deals, dancing commercial breaks, and instant in-app checkout.
TikTok Live Shopping
TikTok Shop has already become a major revenue driver for brands and creators, and TikTok Live is making it even more effective. Livestreams allow creators to answer questions in real time and demonstrate products directly. According to Clickz, “TikTok reported that sellers who hosted livestreams saw 84% year-over-year sales growth”.
Amazon Prime Shoppable Ads
Prime Video is also blending entertainment with commerce. Viewers can now shop through three interactive ad formats:
- Pause Ads: A shoppable screen appears when the viewer pauses.
- Carousel Ads: Viewers browse a brand’s product catalog with their remote.
- Brand Trivia Ads: Interactive questions unlock rewards, discounts, and more.
AMP3 PR monitors trends and newsjacking moments daily to keep our brands top of mind and aligned with viral search terms. We build a weekly pitch schedule months in advance, but stay agile so we can quickly add or swap in timely angles that keep our clients at the top of the funnel.
A recent example: when Pinterest released its 21 Trend Predictions for 2026, AMP3 immediately identified which of our clients’ products aligned with the forecasted trends. Within days, we sent out a pitch that positioned our brands around what consumers will be searching for next year.
What Actually Changed In 2025
A lot happened this year. But here are the shifts that truly reshaped search:
AI became a second homepage. Brands started seeing real traffic and conversions from AI Models like Chat GPT and Gemini, making “Do we show up in AI answers?” a core KPI.
Breadth beat single-page wins:
LLMs rewarded brands with wide, semantically connected coverage (what we call the Long Long Tail), pushing teams to build stronger clusters and topical depth.
AEO and GEO went mainstream:
Marketers began tracking AI citations, model behavior, and topical “ownership” across systems of intelligence , not just search engines.
Workflows flipped to AI-first:
Outlines, topic discovery, clustering, and competitive analysis increasingly started in AI, leaving writers to focus on clarity, logic, and voice.
The Long Long Tail Isn’t About Keywords. It’s About Patterns:
AI systems don’t look for the one page that “wins” a keyword. They look for the pattern your content forms across hundreds of related ideas. So the brands that show up most in AI answers aren’t the ones with the single best article. They’re the ones whose content collectively teaches a model: “This is what we’re about.”
The takeaway: If traditional SEO was about ranking for a query, the Long Long Tail is about shaping a model’s understanding.
Broader coverage = more citations, more mentions, more visibility. It was long thought that a feature had more value but round-ups and consistency in earned media matters, not just the big gets, being a part of the overall narrative and the culture with an always-on approach is important.
In summary, MORE IS MORE especially when your key messaging and niche is a strategic part of all earned and placed coverage.
Thank you!
We hope you enjoyed AMP3 PR’s 2026 PR Predictions. We had an amazing year and are so excited to jump into the new year to show you what we have planned. Stay tuned!
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