PR is always impacted by changes in technology, and the advent of artificial intelligence has been no different. In the past, much of PR depended on backlinks, which essentially involve external websites linking to a particular press release, webpage, or other piece of digital content. For a long time, backlinks were king and a great way to not only get higher search engine rankings but also to gain credibility.
Now, businesses are paying more attention to AI indexing, and some believe it will eventually replace backlinks as the most important metric for online rankings. But why exactly is this? And how can your business avoid being left behind?
How We Find Info Through AI: The Rise of AEO
To understand both the concept of backlinks and AI indexing, we have to consider how consumers find information and content online in the first place. For many of us, our search engine of choice is the first place that we go to. As such, various businesses have spent years trying to rank as highly as they can on search engine results, especially on the first page.
One way this was done was through backlinks. If other unrelated websites link to a particular business, it’s a signal to the search engine crawlers that choose which websites to rank that it was a valuable business.
Now, we still go to search engines, but you’ll notice that with platforms like Google, AI summaries are now more prominent at the top of the page. In fact, many consumers are relying so much on these AI summaries that traffic to websites has been declining in certain sectors.
Outside of the search engines, many consumers find themselves asking AI models like ChatGPT and Claude these different questions. Because AI is essentially determining which businesses get seen and which are left behind, optimizing not just for search engines but for AI crawlers has become key.
This is where AI Engine Optimisation (AEO) comes in. In the last few years, AEO has become a more important part of content, marketing, and PR, and any business looking to thrive in the age of AI will inevitably have to embrace it.
The Benefits of AEO
To be clear, embracing AEO goes beyond just chasing trends or trying to keep up with technology. There are several distinct benefits of being cited or ranked by various AI tools.
- Credibility: Stats show that consumers trust the recommendations and word of AI models more and more each year. If a consumer asks for the best option in the market and your business is among those cited, it instantly gets a veneer of credibility that would otherwise take a long time to establish and maintain.
- Engagement and Sales: For many consumers, asking for a recommendation or information from an AI program is not just out of curiosity but usually with purchase or action intent. A consumer asking for the best of a specific software as a service product is likely looking to engage with one soon, if not immediately, and when you combine this with the credibility that an AI recommendation can give, your business might enjoy higher conversions even if lower traffic overall.
What Becomes of Backlinks?
With all the benefits of AEO and the consistent domination of artificial intelligence programs, where does this leave backlinks? Have they become entirely obsolete and a relic of the past? Not exactly.
We have to remember that not every single web search comes with an AI summary, and thus, there will be many industries in which getting ranked traditionally on search engine results will be a major driver of traffic. Thus, backlinks will still be important.
We also have to consider how backlinks can feed AEO rankings and the first place. After all, the AI crawlers need to comb through existing websites to find these recommendations. Part of the signals that tell it to mention one business or website versus the other is how it is already being ranked.
A software as a service business at the top of Google search engine rankings will likely be included in an AI recommendation to a customer. So, while AEO is becoming perhaps just as important as backlinks in 2026, it has not fully replaced it. Rather, businesses need to work to optimize for AEO while not ignoring SEO.
How Businesses Can Optimize for AI Indexing in 2026
With all these in mind, there are several actionable steps that businesses can take to optimize for AI indexing. Some of these are as follows:
Answering Questions: Ultimately, AI is delivering answers to consumers’ questions. What is the best email service for a new business? What is the best printing service for a wedding? Where should I go for lunch?
When the AI programs are looking to answer these questions, they will prioritize the content that already does this for them. If a customer searches ‘what is the best email service for a new business?’ and you have a blog post with the exact phrasing ‘what is the best email service for a new business’ that immediately answers the question succinctly, you are more likely to be included. No matter what type of written content you are putting out, make sure it is answering a question or query.
Original Studies: It’s been found that AI crawlers love citing original studies and new data. So, your business might want to invest in research papers, insights reports, industry data, and much more. By having these high-quality studies done on published, you’re more likely to be cited by these various AI crawlers.
Headings and FAQs: As a golden rule for trying to gain traction from AI crawlers, include proper H2 and H3 headings, a table of contents, and an FAQ page. These will make your content more easily searchable and will stop crawlers from abandoning it quickly due to poor formatting.
Conclusion
AI indexing might be the future of getting seen online, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that backlinks are a thing of the past. While they do not completely reign supreme anymore and the landscape of online marketing and PR is much more complicated, you do not want to wipe out your backlink budget just yet.
Instead, make sure you are also investing in AEO, from the formatting of your content to the type of issues you are addressing. By having a healthy combination of both, you can make sure that your business is seen by customers whether within AI search results or traditional search engine rankings.
If you don’t know where to start, feel free to reach out to us here at XpressWire. Outside of traditional PR, we also specialize in optimizing all sorts of web content to be seen both by search engines and AI index crawlers. Visit our contact page for more, and together, we can keep your business on top no matter the technological landscape.