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AI Shortlist Plays / Lists and third-party mentions

Which trade press mentions do AI engines pick up?

Target the handful of trade titles your buyers read and the engines already cite, and bring reporters something they can use: original data, a dated result or a clear view on the news. Recent coverage counts most.

Effort: 4 to 8 hours a month

Who does it: Marketing lead, with a subject expert

Best for: B2B firms of 20 to 500 people with data or results to share

Evidence: Moderate (Muck Rack study, reported 24 July 2025)

01 / WHY IT MATTERS

Why it matters.

Muck Rack analysed more than one million citations from generative AI models and, as reported by Nieman Lab on 24 July 2025, found journalistic content cited more than 27% of the time, rising to 49% for questions that implied recency. 56% of ChatGPT’s journalism citations had been published within the past year.

So press coverage is not a vanity line. For a B2B firm, the useful titles are the trade publications the engines already read for your category, not the biggest names.

02 / SELF-CHECK

The 10-minute self-check.

Two quick searches:

  • For your category question, open the source panels in ChatGPT and Perplexity and count the news and trade-press links.
  • Search Google News for your company name, last twelve months. How many genuine articles mention you?
03 / STEPS

Steps.

  1. List five to ten trade titles that your buyers read and that appear in the engines’ sources.
  2. Prepare one thing a reporter can use: original data, a dated client result (with permission, play 24) or a clear comment on news in your field.
  3. Answer journalist requests only where you have real expertise, with a specific, quotable answer.
  4. Publish factual press releases on your own site as well as through distribution; keep them free of superlatives.
  5. Collect coverage on your about page with dates and links.

Earned coverage feeds the third-party layer of our AI search visibility work.

04 / OUR OWN SITE

What we saw on prolinkage.com.

05 / MEASURE

How to measure it.

  • Coverage: dated pieces per quarter in your target titles.
  • Engine pick-up: coverage URLs appearing in source panels for your panel questions.
  • Brand demand: branded search in the weeks after coverage (play 38).
07 / SOURCES

Sources.

AI Shortlist Plays

The self-check shows what you can see yourself.

What the engines say across repeated runs, which sources they read and who they name instead is harder to see from inside. Our free AI Visibility Snapshot runs a sample of your buyers’ questions and is reviewed by a person.

More than a decade of experience, across businesses and markets.