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by Erik Carlson on Nov 13, 2025 11:27:30 AM
From ten “blue links” to answers...are you ready?
Search is changing forever, and at a rapid pace. Large-language models now determine which facts, quotes and sources appear in front of your audience. And for most, they influence the outcome – that could mean a purchasing decision or the next action.
This shift changes the job of communications from “drive clicks and eyeballs” to “earn selection and outcome.” What you publish still matters, but how machines read, trust and cite it matters even MORE.
At Notified, we’ve analyzed thousands of press releases, investor updates and corporate statements for AI visibility, examining patterns and qualities of good practice and strategy. I’m excited to share an upcoming case study, but in the meantime, I wanted to rush some practical tips to help corporate storytellers maximize AI visibility.
The content most likely to be surfaced and cited shares four key traits: Structure, Originality, Authority and Recency. We call it the SOAR Content Framework™.
The Answer Engine Economy: The New Battleground for Visibility
The old chain was simple: publisher → search engine → user. Optimize, rank and measure clicks and potential views.
The new chain is different: publisher → answer engine → user. Systems blend sources, summarize them and deliver conclusions. Your page may never load, but your credibility still matters as it determines where your perspective shows up.
This creates three risks:
- You can be right and still be invisible.
- You can be first and still be replaced.
- You can be official and still be skipped.
The practical question is no longer, “How do I get people to read my content?” It’s now, “How do I get AI search to surface my content to shape its answer?”
That’s exactly what the SOAR Content Framework ™ was built to solve, aligning the fundamentals of great communication with the signals that modern AI understands.
Meet SOAR
SOAR stands for Structure, Originality, Authority and Recency. These are the selection signals that answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini evaluate first.
You do not need a data science team to apply them. You need a consistent way to present and maintain information.
S: Structure. Make It Easy for Machines to Read
If a crawler can’t read it, an AI model can’t cite it. Focus on visible and invisible (machine readable) structure.
What to do (using press releases as an example):
- Use a clear headline that matches the topic and time.
- Add a Key Facts block near the top.
- State entities, dates, and numbers in plain sentences.
- Include JSON-LD (schema.org) with publisher, organization, dates and canonical URL.
- Keep the order consistent: H1 → highlights → context → boilerplate → contacts.
Why it works:
Answer engines map content into “who, what, when, where, how much, said by whom.” Reduce the effort to extract those fields and your content becomes safer to lift.
O: Originality. Make It Unmistakably Yours
If everyone’s saying the same thing, AI will decide who said it best - and it might not be you.
What to do for press releases:
- Include at least one first-party data point.
- Name a customer, partner, product, or region.
- Add a human quote with role and responsibility. No paragraph-long quotes from your CEO, ‘brevity is the soul of wit’... and the preference of AI.
- Provide context for assets and charts with descriptive captions and alt text.
Test: If your competitor could have written it using your press kit, it’s not original and it won’t be surfaced.
A: Authority. Signal That You’re the Official Source
When AI decides what to surface, it doesn’t pick up the flashiest quote; it picks the source it can trust.
Models minimize risk: wrong facts, old numbers, leadership changes or outdated pricing. When in doubt, they choose the “adult in the room.”
What to do:
- Publish it on your official domain.
- Name organization and spokesperson (with title).
- Align content across your newsroom and wire service at the same time.
- Keep media contacts and boilerplates are complete and current.
- Standardize templates so these fields are never optional.
Authority is clarity. The cleaner your signals, the more likely AI will treat your version as the truth.
R: Recency. Keep It Current
Time is now a trust signal. Outdated content gets skipped.
What to do in your content:
- Add an “As of [date]” line in your intro.
- Keep schema dates (published and modified) up to date.
- Issue a follow-up release or FAQ within 24–72 hours for major updates.
- Push updates to multiple trusted sources at once.
- Consider the new content lifecycle; content citations peak at day 15 and drop significantly by day 45.
If timing matters to you, it matters to the model.
Turning SOAR Into a Repeatable Process
Understanding SOAR is one thing. Adoption requires a simple operating rhythm.
Follow these three steps:
1. Update Your Master Content Template
- For press releases, include fields for key facts, named source, “as of” date, your organization and publisher details and a media contact.
- Ensure your website or newswire service has built-in JSON-LD that mirrors the headline and body.
2. Run a SOAR Checklist Before Publishing Content
- Structure: Clear headline, highlights and schema in place.
- Originality: At least one owned data point or quote.
- Authority: Named organization, domain and spokesperson.
- Recency: Time signals that are current and visible.
3. Measure What Matters
Track where your content appears in AI answers, how quickly it gets cited after publication and the share of voice for your brand and products within those answers. Use patterns to refine templates and training.
This is the next discipline for communicators: not just distributing information, but ensuring it’s chosen by people and by the systems that inform them.
How Notified Can Help
If your story is missing from these answers, you risk being invisible.
That’s why we’re so excited to introduce Content OS, the industry’s first operating system for PR, delivering an AI-first workflow designed to help you control your narrative in the Answer Engine Economy.
It combines press release distribution, an AI-enhanced media contacts database, media monitoring and advanced analytics that includes an exclusive partnership with Profound, all-in-one workflow designed to maximize impact across content streams and meet your audiences where they are.
Content OS
Be seen and heard in the Answer Engine Economy.
About Notified
We are Notified, and your story goes here. As the only technology partner dedicated to both investor relations and public relations professionals, we help you control and amplify your corporate narrative. Our fully integrated PR and IR platforms streamline every step—whether it's reaching the right media, press release distribution, and measurement or designing new IR websites, managing investor days, earnings releases, and regulatory filings. Connecting both worlds, GlobeNewswire is one of the world's largest and most trusted newswire distribution networks, serving leading organizations for over 30 years. Together, we empower communicators to inform a better world.
Notified is an affiliate of Equiniti Group Limited (EQ)
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