Oct 10, 2025
For a long time, earned media coverage was simple: if a journalist wrote about you, you would get attention. But by 2025, a new gatekeeper has emerged. And it doesn’t work in newsrooms.
When people turn to AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude to ask questions about their industry, the models do not pull information from ads or SEO-optimized blogs. They build answers from sources they trust.
This means that AI systems are subtly shaping visibility. It is the AI that decides which brands, people, and publications become part of the "knowledge base" that others see.
From monitoring to citation
Muck Racks report Generative Pulse captures the change:
95% of the links AI cites are earned, not paid
27% are journalistic sources
Within the tech sector, AI prioritizes journalism and structured owned content over encyclopedic or outdated sources
This means that earned visibility no longer just reaches people. It also trains the models that shape future visibility. In this new environment, it is not just a PR success to be cited in TechCrunch or The Register, it is a data signal.
Welcome to Earned 2.0
At Crux, we call this change Earned 2.0: where journalistic credibility meets algorithmic authority. In Earned 2.0, your brand's influence depends on two types of trust:
Human trust: the journalists, analysts, and audience who value your expertise.
Machine trust: the AI systems that determine which sources are reliable enough to cite.
Crux method: Building AI-aware earned visibility
Principle | What it means | How to apply it |
|---|---|---|
Be among the reliable | Focus on media that AI models consistently cite. | Prioritize quality coverage over volume; top media + niche expertise beats broad reach. |
Structure for machines | Make your own content readable for AI. | Use schema, Wikidata, structured headings, and clear internal linking. |
Keep content fresh | AI favors fresh articles with high engagement. | Regular updates enhance "relevance weight" in AI retrieval. |
Combine earned + owned | AI mixes the two. | Ensure that your coverage links back to owned pages with consistent messaging. |
An example – from media monitoring to machine memory
When Crux implemented structured data and consistent internal linking on our site, we began to appear more frequently in AI-generated answers to "B2B Tech PR agency." It's no coincidence; it's Earned 2.0 in practice.
Our media monitoring and structured owned content complemented each other to establish both human and machine credibility.
Why it matters
The audience for your next media hit may not be a person. It could be an AI.
The best stories now live twice: once in headlines, once in model training data.
Communicators who understand this change future-proof their visibility.
💡 In summary: The future of earned media coverage is not just about being seen. It’s about being stored. Want to know more? Feel free to reach out.