With an exponential rise in zero-click searches and AI-generated traffic, ask any PR professional whether AI visibility matters, and the answer will be a resounding yes. However, ask whether they feel in control of it, and the confidence drops.
That gap between conviction and capability is the clearest signal from the survey behind our 2026 report on ‘Closing the AI Visibility Gap‘, which includes responses from 110+ PR pros regarding their preferences and priorities regarding brand visibility and reputation in an AI-first landscape.
Key takeaways from Agility’s survey of PR and comms pros
Here are the key insights we found on how PR professionals perceive AI visibility and what it means for the industry.
AI visibility is a definitive priority for PR teams
Our survey revealed near-universal agreement on where the industry is headed:
- 84% of PR professionals are prioritizing AI visibility and reputation as part of their communications strategy.
- 46% rate AI visibility as a critical or high priority, considering it a core marketing objective.
- 62% of PR and comms pros actively monitor how their brand is represented across AI engines.
- 35% monitor their AI representation at least once a week, treating it as an ongoing performance metric rather than a periodic audit.
This aligns with the global trend of AI becoming the starting point for buying journeys and of brands prioritizing AI visibility as a key metric. PR teams are shifting their focus from conventional metrics to an AI-driven measurement framework that prioritizes how their brand is reflected across AI platforms.
Messaging-portrayal alignment remains a concern
While the conviction is there, PR and comms experts we surveyed lack confidence in AI visibility. On a 10-point scale:
While a 5.5 visibility score represents failing to make the list, it is still something PR is equipped to deal with. However, the 5.6 portrayal accuracy score is unfamiliar territory, as PR teams are unaware of how AI describes their brand, what sources it uses to extract information, and how to align intended messaging with the portrayal.
Learn how AI engines decide which brands to recommend — and how to become one of them. Read our comprehensive guide to AI Visibility for PR teams.
There is a measurement gap
Here’s the trap. Our survey tells us that while PR pros recognize AI’s growing importance, they lack the measurement framework required to tackle it.
Traditional media monitoring and share-of-voice dashboards were built to count clips and gauge sentiment across news and social. They were never designed to answer the questions PR teams are asking about AI answer engines: does our brand appear when someone asks for a recommendation, on which engines, which sources are cited, and is the description accurate?
A clip reporting tool cannot see inside a generated answer, so teams applying legacy tools for AI visibility can monitor diligently and still fly blind.
And therein lies the gap. As user behaviour, brand visibility metrics, and measurement frameworks evolve, so should the tools required to measure them.
Visibility Intelligence: Agility’s dedicated AI measurement solution
Our survey data points to a specific problem. PR teams already have the instinct and behaviour to monitor. What they lack is a measurement solution that can show where their brand surfaces across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. In addition to knowing where your brand is surfaced, it is equally important to know whether the portrayal is accurate, which sources shape it, and how they compare with competitors in the same answers.
This is the same challenge our data research highlighted in the same report: consistent measurement, ongoing AI visibility audits, and an evolving strategy that changes with the algorithm.
Closing the confidence gap is less about working harder than about measuring the right things with the right instrument. This is the gap Agility’s Visibility Intelligence is built to close. Part of our AI-native intelligence capabilities integrated within the enterprise-grade platform, Visibility Intelligence gives communications teams a real-time view of how their brand is represented across AI answer engines and turns that view into action.
The profession has already decided AI visibility matters. The next step is moving from guessing to leading, seeing the channel clearly and building the digital authority that makes a brand the one AI recommends.
Explore Visibility Intelligence to see where your brand stands today.
