Why a Standard Press Release Underperforms in AI
Traditional press releases optimise for human journalists scanning a wire. AI assistants extract differently — they reward fact-dense leads, named-entity consistency, machine-readable quotes, and structured-data markup. A press release optimised for AI citation often gets cited not only by AI assistants but also picked up faster by SEO crawlers, because the same patterns serve both. This template gives you the optimised structure.
The Template
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[City], [Country] — [Date in YYYY-MM-DD]
Headline: [Subject] [Verb] [Object] — [One concrete number or named entity]
Example: "Presenc AI launches local-first AI visibility tracking, monitoring 1,200+ brands across 5 LLM surfaces"
Subhead (single sentence, ~20 words): [What changed, with a specific number]
Lead paragraph (3-4 sentences, fact-dense):
- Sentence 1: Who. (Full legal name + descriptor)
- Sentence 2: What changed. (Specific action with date)
- Sentence 3: Concrete number that captures the impact.
- Sentence 4: Why it matters in one phrase.
Example:
"Presenc AI, an AI visibility platform tracking brand presence across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, today announced its local-first monitoring product (May 15, 2026). The product covers 1,200+ brands across 5 LLM surfaces and 680 million tracked citations from August 2024 to April 2026. The release marks the company's first product targeting agentic-AI surfaces directly."
Body section 1: Context
- Two paragraphs explaining the market problem this solves.
- Cite an external benchmark or third-party stat with source.
- Avoid marketing language; use specific numbers and named-entity references.
Body section 2: Product / news details
- Three to five bullet points, each starting with a verb.
- Each bullet contains one concrete number or named entity.
Body section 3: Customer or expert quote
- One quote, 1-2 sentences max.
- Attribute fully (Name, Title, Organization).
- Quote must contain at least one specific fact, not generic praise.
Bad: "We're excited to launch this new product."
Good: "We've seen a 38% lift in average brand citation rate within 90 days of customers adopting the local-first monitor." — [Name, Title]
Body section 4: Availability + pricing (if applicable)
- Plain language. Avoid "starting at" phrasing.
- Currency, region, and exact figure.
About [Company] (boilerplate paragraph):
- Founded year, headquarters, founders.
- One-sentence product description.
- Investor names if disclosed.
- Website URL.
Media contact:
[Name]
[Title]
[Email]
[Phone]Required Schema.org Block
Attach the following JSON-LD to the release URL. It dramatically lifts AI citation rate.
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "[Headline]",
"datePublished": "[ISO 8601]",
"dateModified": "[ISO 8601]",
"author": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "[Company]" },
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "[Company]",
"logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "[Logo URL]" }
},
"mentions": [
{ "@type": "Product", "name": "[Product]" },
{ "@type": "Organization", "name": "[Partner / customer]" }
]
}
</script>What Gets Cited (and What Doesn't)
- Quoted facts get cited; quoted opinions do not. "A 38% lift in citation rate" gets cited; "We're excited to launch" does not.
- Named-entity consistency matters more than verbosity. The same product name spelled the same way every time wins.
- Source-linked stats get cited. A claim with a URL gets cited; the same claim without a URL gets paraphrased away.
- Bullets get cited more than prose. AI assistants prefer extractable structure.
- ISO 8601 dates beat "today". The press-release date should be a specific YYYY-MM-DD that an AI assistant can parse.
Distribution Notes
- Publish on your own newsroom URL first. AI assistants give the originating URL higher trust than wire syndications.
- Submit to PR Newswire, Business Wire, or GlobeNewswire for traditional pickup, but treat the wire copy as syndicated, not canonical.
- Update llms.txt with a pointer to the newsroom URL on the release day.
- Email the release to journalists with whom you have a relationship, not as a cold blast.
- Cross-link the release from the product/news page so AI crawlers see the connection.