In February 2024, Gartner published a prediction that sent a wave of anxiety through the communications and marketing industry. By 2026, the research firm estimated, search-engine volume would decline by 25 per cent as consumers shifted their questions to Gen AI tools, chatbots, and virtual assistants.
Warnings followed about the demise of traditional search, the disruption of Google's dominance, and the collapse of website traffic. Two years later, Gartner's predicted decline has not materialised. In fact, Google says search queries are at an all-time high, with more than five trillion searches conducted annually. Generative AI search is an increasingly significant part of that activity. According to Similarweb's July 2026 analysis, Google's AI Overviews appeared in more than 43 per cent of US searches and Google's AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users globally.
But for communications professionals, the preoccupation with generative AI search volumes and visibility has obscured a more consequential development. Generative AI is increasingly helping people find and interpret news, shaping how they understand organisations, and form opinions about them. In doing so, it is becoming an influential voice in its own right and one we have to manage.
Generative AI: The new battleground for corporate reputation
Communications teams have long recognised the importance of engaging with influential voices. Journalists, commentators, analysts, and social media personalities all occupy a central place in communications strategies because of their ability to shape public perceptions. Generative AI is becoming another vector of influence, with the potential to amplify an organisation's reputation across a vast audience that increasingly regards its answers as authoritative. Yet it remains far less integrated into communications plans.
Part of the problem lies in how generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is currently approached. Most GEO audits focus on rankings, citations, and visibility, treating AI much like another distribution channel. But unlike a search result, an AI-generated answer interprets sources, weighs competing claims, and presents its own characterisation of an organisation. Understanding how models "think", the assumptions and biases that shape their judgements, the evidence they favour, and the criticisms they consider credible, is critical to understanding how a company's reputation takes shape via AI responses.
Those assessments are not fixed. They can change as new information emerges, models are updated, and different questions are asked. A one-off audit provides a useful starting point, but communications teams need to monitor how AI's assessments evolve, just as they track changes in news coverage and public sentiment.
At Sequencr, we've been helping communications teams build that understanding, examining the reasoning and "thinking" behind models' assessments of their organisations and identifying the information that shapes them. Combined with ongoing monitoring, this intelligence can help shape earned media strategies that influence the answers and thinking of AI tools.
It also calls for a more discriminating approach to media relations. A story's value cannot be judged solely by the prominence of the publication or the size of its audience. A specialist article providing credible evidence about a company's safety record, for example, may prove more consequential to its reputation in AI-generated answers than a favourable profile that does little to address the underlying concerns.
And this is more than a theory. Recent studies illustrate just how much generative AI is changing the way people consume and evaluate news.
Four findings stand out:
1. Generative AI is becoming a new front page for news consumers
People are increasingly turning to AI for news. According to the Reuters Institute's 2026 Digital News Report, 10 per cent of respondents use AI for news each week, up from seven per cent in 2025.
What's more interesting is how they use it. Among those who access news through generative AI, 42 per cent ask follow-up questions and 35 per cent seek the latest news. For these audiences, AI is becoming part of the process through which they explore and make sense of events, giving its interpretation significant influence.
2. Generative AI is becoming an arbiter of authority
People are asking AI what to believe. According to the same Reuters research, 33 per cent of people who use AI for news ask the tools to assess the reliability of sources and the trustworthiness of the information.
Audiences are beginning to consult AI systems for judgements about credibility, giving the models a degree of authority that communications teams cannot afford to overlook.
3. AI is reshaping which stories and sources gain prominence
Generative AI selects which sources to use, which facts to emphasise, and which perspectives to include.
A 2026 study examining 14,212 queries across Google Search, Google's AI Overviews, and Gemini found remarkably little overlap in the sources presented. Source-overlap scores ranged from just 0.11 to 0.18, on a scale where 1 represents identical sets of sources.
The sources an AI system draws upon help determine the information and perspectives available to shape answers.
4. AI can help break through the filter bubble
A September 2026 study involving 37,561 readers of The Washington Post found that readers receiving AI-powered news were more likely to encounter information in common with others, while also consuming a wider range of topics themselves.
For communications teams, this raises an interesting possibility: AI could help organisations reach audiences who might never encounter their messages through the publications, commentators, or other sources they typically engage with.
Gartner's prediction focused attention on how much search traffic generative AI might displace. But the more consequential change for communications has little to do with search volumes.
Communications teams have long understood that reputation depends on what influential voices say about a company. The same principle now applies to generative AI. Where a company ranks or how often it is cited matters far less than how AI models "think" about it, and what informs those judgements.
It's time for generative AI monitoring and engagement to become as integral to corporate communications as media monitoring and social listening.
Matt Collette is CEO of Sequencr AI, a technology consultancy dedicated to unlocking the full potential of AI for marketing and communications teams. Before founding Sequencr, he was Head of Digital for Edelman Canada and later Global Head of Digital Growth, where he led efforts to embed generative AI across Edelman's global operations. Matt created the firm's AI task force, launched its first campaign powered by generative AI, and developed tools, prototypes, and training initiatives for clients and internal teams.
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