By Meropa Communications

For the past two decades, marketers have focused on how to ensure their brand comes top of a Google search.

Increasingly, that’s the wrong objective.

South Africans, like other consumers around the world, are changing the way they obtain information. According to the Reuters Institute and Oxford University’s Digital News Report 2026, growing numbers are turning to online content creators and artificial intelligence platforms for their news.

Weekly use of AI chatbots for news has risen globally from 7% to 10% in just a year, driven largely by growth in emerging markets, including Africa, while globally, 16% of people under 35 now use AI to consume news.

Although AI still plays a complementary role for most users, people are increasingly asking AI for answers rather than searching for them.

For businesses, this changes far more than how they market.

When a prospective customer asks ChatGPT whether your company is trustworthy, or an investor asks how your business ranks against competitors, AI doesn’t simply search your website. It assembles an answer from hundreds of signals across the internet and presents a single response.

That response is increasingly becoming your brand’s shop window.

Research released by Worldcom Public Relations Group in partnership with Semrush illustrates why this matters. The study found that between 75% and 85% of the information AI platforms use to answer questions about brands comes from external sources rather than companies’ own websites or digital channels.

In other words, your reputation is increasingly determined by what others say about you.

That represents a profound shift for CEOs and marketing directors.

For years, organisations invested heavily in search engine optimisation (SEO), content marketing and corporate websites. Those disciplines remain important, but AI is rewarding something that has always sat at the heart of strategic communications: credibility.

Independent journalism, expert commentary, customer reviews, academic research, industry reports and industry associations are becoming the evidence AI uses to decide whether your organisation is authoritative.

One of the more surprising findings from the Worldcom research is that the platforms exerting the greatest influence over AI are not necessarily those with the largest audiences.

Globally, Reddit emerged as the single most-cited source in AI-generated answers, despite having a much smaller user base than Facebook or YouTube. South Africa mirrors this trend. Reddit remains a relatively niche platform compared with Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or YouTube, yet the conversations taking place there can disproportionately shape AI-generated responses.

The lesson is an important one: in the AI era, influence is no longer determined solely by audience size. It is determined by whether a source is regarded as credible.

The Reuters report points to another significant shift. South Africans are increasingly turning to trusted individual creators and journalists for information. Former mainstream journalists such as Qaanitah Hunter, Dan Corder and Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh have built influential audiences by combining podcasts, YouTube and other digital platforms with authoritative reporting and analysis.

AI reflects this changing media landscape. It doesn’t distinguish between credibility based on the size of a newsroom. It looks for trustworthy, well-referenced information wherever it exists.

For communications professionals, none of this should come as a surprise.

Public relations has always been about earning credibility rather than buying attention. AI amplifies that principle. It places greater value on independent validation than on corporate messaging.

It also places greater value on local authority. When answering South African queries, AI draws on local news organisations, regulators, universities, professional bodies and recognised experts. For multinationals, this means global content strategies are no longer sufficient. Organisations need a strong footprint within South Africa’s own information ecosystem.

This is where the relationship between marketing teams and communications agencies becomes strategically important.

Marketing builds awareness through owned channels, advertising and customer experience. Communications agencies build the independent authority that AI rewards through earned media, executive profiling, thought leadership, original research and relationships with credible third parties.

Increasingly, these disciplines should not be managed separately. Together, they shape how AI understands a brand.

There are practical steps every leadership team can take.

Start by auditing your AI reputation. Ask ChatGPT and other AI platforms the questions your customers, investors, regulators or prospective employees are likely to ask. Many organisations will experience a gap between how their brand turns up in traditional search versus AI search.

Specialist platforms such as Brandi.ai make this process more strategic by monitoring how leading AI platforms describe your organisation. It identifies inaccuracies or reputation gaps, and benchmarks your visibility, authority and sentiment against competitors. That allows both marketing and communications teams to prioritise where to build stronger third-party credibility and to measure whether those efforts are improving AI search performance over time.

Next, invest in recognised expertise. Executive thought leadership, independent research and knowledgeable spokespeople create the signals AI values.

Continue prioritising earned media. Every credible article, interview or expert quotation published by a respected news organisation strengthens the evidence base AI uses to form opinions about your organisation.

Finally, monitor the conversations shaping your industry. This is not about chasing every social media trend or trying to build a Reddit following. It is about understanding where influential discussions are taking place, correcting misinformation where appropriate and ensuring credible voices contribute to the debate.

The organisations that succeed in the AI era will not be those that produce the most content.

They will be the ones which earn the most trust.

While technology has fundamentally changed the way people search for information, it has not changed the way they decide whom to believe.

Meropa Communications is a national public relations agency and a member of Worldcom, a global partnership of independent communications agencies with 115 offices in 39 countries.