Communications Is More Influential, But Is Control Slipping?

Earned Media Becomes the Default Input

The research shared at the conference suggested that around 90% of the sources cited by AI answer engines originate from earned media.

For communications professionals, that should feel like validation.

For years, comms teams have struggled to demonstrate a direct link between activity and commercial outcomes. Coverage has been hard to translate into measurable business impact. Today, if an AI system recommends a product, organisation, or executive based on third party reporting, communications can more clearly point to its role in shaping that outcome.

The connection between communications activity and business impact has rarely been clearer.

But I left the conference with a different question.

If 90% of the narrative influencing AI-generated answers comes from third parties, are communications teams comfortable with 90% of their narrative being shaped outside their control?

Credibility vs Control

That tension deserves more attention than it is currently getting.

Communications has always been about shaping, influencing, and protecting organisational narrative. Yet many organisations now appear to be moving into a model where the majority of what is said about them in AI environments is derived from journalists, analysts, commentators, and external publications.

Earned media still plays a critical role here. It provides credibility. It provides validation. In many cases, it provides the foundation of trust that owned channels cannot replicate on their own.

But credibility is not control.

And the question is not whether earned media is valuable. It clearly is. The question is what happens when it becomes the dominant input into AI-generated interpretation.

Why Earned Media Wins in AI Systems

There is a common assumption that earned media is “winning” because it is more authoritative.

That may not be the full story.

AI systems are not evaluating authority in the way humans do. They are evaluating structure, accessibility, repetition, and extractability. In many cases, earned media performs better not because it is inherently more credible, but because it is easier for machines to interpret.

That is a subtle but important distinction.

Most corporate owned channels were designed for human consumption. They are built around navigation, storytelling, and brand expression. They assume a user will browse and interpret meaning over time.

AI systems do not work that way. They extract facts, identify entities, map relationships, and compress information into synthesized answers.

The Gap in Owned Media

In that process, clarity often matters more than intent.

And that creates an uneven playing field between earned and owned media that has less to do with editorial quality and more to do with format.

If AI becomes the primary gateway to discovery, then the structure of information becomes as important as the message itself.

That has implications that go well beyond traditional media relations.

It affects how corporate websites are built. It affects how product information is written. It affects how leadership narratives are stored and maintained.

It also exposes a misconception in how many organisations think about narrative control.

The misconception is that communications is gaining influence simply because earned media is being cited more often.

But communications is gaining influence in shaping inputs, but losing visibility into how those inputs are recombined and presented in AI-generated outputs.

Influence is increasing at the input stage, while control is decreasing at the interpretation stage.

Competing for Representation, Not Just Attention

That is a fundamentally different operating model for communications.

It also highlights a gap in most owned media strategies.

Owned channels are still largely structured as marketing assets rather than knowledge systems. They prioritise messaging and design, but not necessarily machine readability or consistency of factual structure.

As a result, AI systems often default to external sources simply because they are easier to process.

If AI systems are shaping first impressions before a user ever reaches a corporate website, then organisations are no longer just competing for attention. They are competing for representation.

There is also a commercial implication here.

AI-generated summaries are increasingly acting as the first point of evaluation in decision-making, from procurement to investment research to leadership assessment. That means reputation is being formed upstream of direct engagement.

By the time someone reaches an owned channel, a narrative has already been set.

The Future of Communications Balance

The challenge for communications teams is therefore no longer just about earning coverage. It is about ensuring that both earned and owned content can function as equally usable inputs into AI systems.

That requires a shift in thinking.

Owned media needs to become more structured, more consistent, and more explicitly factual. It needs to behave less like a campaign channel and more like a source of truth.

The future should not be defined by a 90/10 split between earned and owned narrative inputs. It should be defined by balance. A balance where AI systems can draw from trusted third party validation and equally trusted first party truth.

Communications has never been more influential. The question now is whether it will remain in control of the narrative it is helping to shape.

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