Until recently, building an attractive narrative strategy was mainly viewed as a way to generate immediate media visibility. In press relations, a strong angle, a clear story and a readable issue were what made a journalist pay attention.
With the rise of generative engines and conversational search, this reality has expanded. Today, an organisation’s ability to build a coherent narrative determines not only its media coverage, but also how it is understood, summarised and recommended by AI engines.
Which implies designing a narrative that holds over time. In other words, what must be readable for a journalist must now also be readable for a machine.
This is where PR and GEO truly converge.
A narrative is not a story. It is a structure.
Narrative is often confused with storytelling. That is a mistake. A narrative is not decorative storytelling. It is a meaning structure that organises:
- what an organisation does
- why it does it
- the context it operates in
- the problems it addresses
- how it differentiates itself
A clear narrative strategy allows any third party to quickly understand: “This is what this company is. This is its role. This is its territory.”
That is exactly what journalists look for when assessing a potential story. And it is exactly what generative engines look for when modelling an entity.
Why media favour certain narratives
Newsrooms are saturated with information. What makes the difference is not raw novelty, but the ability to fit into a comprehensible framework.
A strong narrative provides a frame, consistency and continuity. It allows journalists to connect a story to an existing reading grid: sector transformation, emerging usage, societal issue, business model shift, regulatory change, etc.
By contrast, a succession of isolated announcements, even relevant ones, makes an organisation hard to read.
Why generative engines work the same way
Conversational AI does not “look for press releases”. It analyses massive volumes of content to detect regularities, co-occurrences, relationships between concepts and recurring patterns. From this, it gradually builds a representation of what an organisation is.
If messaging is consistent, the representation is stable. If it is fragmented or contradictory, the representation becomes blurred.
A clear narrative therefore acts as a semantic anchor. It enables engines to classify an entity, position it within an ecosystem and recommend it in specific contexts, exactly like a journalist would.
PR and GEO: two readers of the same narrative
It is tempting to think:
PR = human
GEO = machine
In reality, both read the same narrative, through different mechanisms. PR evaluates whether a narrative is relevant enough to produce an article. AI evaluates whether a narrative is coherent enough to produce an answer. In both cases, what matters is clarity, consistency and structured repetition.
This fundamentally changes how visibility must be approached. It is no longer about optimising isolated messages. It is about building a durable narrative foundation.
What this means for organisations
Building an attractive narrative does not mean inventing a nice story. It means that you clarify your real role, identify the problems you solve and formulate a point of view in order to organise all communications around this backbone.
This is deep work but it is what enables PR teams to build medium- and long-term reputation and digital teams to build stable visibility.
When this is done, AI engines understand “who you are”
Conclusion
In the age of generative engines, narrative becomes a central strategic asset. Not because it looks good, but because it determines how an organisation is readable across all mediation spaces: media, search engines, platforms and AI systems.
PR and GEO do not converge by coincidence, they converge because they now rely on the same requirement:
the construction of coherent meaning structures.
FAQ : Building a Narrative Strategy
What is a narrative in communication?
A narrative is a structural framework that shapes how an organisation is understood: its role, mission, positioning, and domain of expertise.
What is the difference between narrative and storytelling?
Storytelling is the act of telling a story. The narrative is the underlying architecture that makes individual stories coherent and meaningful as a whole.
Why is narrative important for generative AI engines?
Because it allows AI systems to identify patterns, consistencies, and recurring themes, and to model what an organisation represents.
Should public relations teams care about GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)?
Yes. The way a narrative is structured now influences both media coverage and visibility within AI-driven search and recommendation engines.
Does a narrative replace messaging?
No. It encompasses it. Messages are isolated expressions of a broader narrative structure.
