5 things every comms leader needs to know this week
from AI browsers to IG indexing, what just changed and what to do next.
The visibility landscape is shifting—again.
In just the past week, five major changes have landed that will impact how your brand shows up, what your team needs to prioritize, and how you think about communications, search, and media moving forward.
Here are the 5 you can’t afford to miss:
1. OpenAI is building a browser—and it changes everything.
If successful, OpenAI's browser is not just another competitor to Chrome. It rewires how more than 500 million users discover information. It prioritizes AI-native answers, not links. That means your brand’s traditional search visibility won’t matter if you’re not showing up in the chat layer.
What to do today:
→ Schedule a visibility audit with your SEO and comms team.
→ Run incognito tests using the top queries your audience asks.
→ Ask: Would AI mention you?
If you don’t know what people are asking, email me to get a custom generative ai search report.
You can also download this overview I wrote about the potential changes.
2. Instagram just opted you into generative search.
As of today, all public Business and Creator Instagram accounts are now being indexed by Google and Bing. That means your Reels, carousels, and photo posts can appear in search results—even if you never optimized for SEO.
What to do today:
→ Check your Instagram settings: Settings → Privacy → Search Engine Indexing.
→ If you do want to show up in search (most brands should), make sure captions are keyword-rich.
→ Add a short Q&A to carousel captions to influence AI search results.
Here’s a quick one-pager for you:
3. LinkedIn’s algorithm is rewarding “reposts with no commentary.”
You read that right. Reposting someone else’s content without your take is outperforming original content—because LinkedIn is indexing dwell time and surfacing content that already has traction.
What to do today:
→ Test this yourself. Repost a piece of content your audience cares about and watch what happens.
→ If you're a thought leader, use this as a strategy layer—not a replacement.
[Caveat: There are all sorts of caveats with this one. It depends on who is sharing what and when. So take this with a grain of salt.]
4. AI-generated search queries now have a dominant new intent type.
According to Profound, 37.5% of all ChatGPT prompts are generative. That means users are no longer asking for information. They’re asking for assets. (“Write me a press release,” “Create a pitch,” “Draft a video script.”)
What this means:
→ Your content strategy must now serve machines building content, not just humans browsing.
→ Press releases, blogs, and bylines should include formats and answers AI can reassemble.
5. Brand visibility is no longer about traffic. It’s about training data.
If you’re not showing up in the answers LLMs give, your brand may as well not exist. And most content isn’t built for that layer.
What to do today:
→ Reframe your strategy around answer engine optimization (AEO).
→ Track your brand mentions in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google’s AI Overviews.
We’ve built internal tooling to do exactly this—and I’m sharing our playbooks with clients. Reply if you want to see the visibility map.
I released a new (extremely long-form) whitepaper on important terms and thoughts around this. Email me for access.
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Stay sharp, stay visible,
Sarah
🪄 pr@ctical—where sharp taste meets sharper tools.
p.s. I also launched a new virtual and in-person keynote series with the white paper.
white paper
Thanks for sharing your insight! Really interesting and exciting time in the everevolving worlds of PR, marketing and brand strategy
White paper - thanks!