The AI Blind Spot Reshaping Communications Strategy
AI is reshaping communications strategy in ways most leaders haven’t yet realized. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini don’t “see” the world the way we do. They prioritize structured, crawlable text—but they miss one of the most powerful sources of brand impact: broadcast news.
Broadcast news is effectively invisible to LLMs like OpenAI and Claude, unlike text-based sources like The Wall Street Journal, AP, or The New York Times.
LLMs can’t process video content. They only ingest digitally structured text they can crawl. If they don’t have access to a properly structured transcript, they won’t incorporate that content into their memory of your brand. It is a critical blind spot.
So, while a nuanced, multi-channel communications strategy that breaks news across a mix of broadcast and print outlets will reach your audience in real time—that content will not get funneled into the LLMs equally. Much of it won’t influence your brand’s reputation long-term.
Imagine This
Your CEO appears on CNBC’s Squawk Box, is profiled in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and secures a segment on ABC’s World News. Finally, your company earns a long-form piece on CBS Sunday Morning—a segment months in the making. Content is repurposed for social. From a mainstream media perspective, this is a home run.
But in the AI-powered discovery world, only the two print articles from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal will persist. The broadcast segments won’t enter the LLM ecosystem unless they are transcribed and published in crawlable formats.
So Therefore What?
Your communications strategy now needs a dual-track design: One that drives real-time impact and one that ensures long-term AI discoverability.
Track 1: Real-Time Impact—Original Communications Strategy
Your core audiences haven’t changed. Broadcast drives immediate audience impact, market-moving moments, social virality.
Track 1: Real-Time Impact—The Original Communications Strategy
Build your communications strategy including broadcast, print, online, and social—reaching people in real time.
Broadcast segments still drive market-moving moments and social virality.
Social amplification remains essential to extend the life and reach of coverage.
Track 2: Persistent Discoverability—The AI-Era Add-On
This is where the game has changed.
Ensure your coverage exists in crawlable, text-based formats. If the LLMs can’t crawl it, they can’t surface it.
For broadcast coverage push for online write-ups by the same outlet e.g., CNBC.com for Squawk Box or Power Lunch broadcast pieces.
Publish full transcripts of broadcast pieces on your owned channels. Use company owned sites like newsrooms, blogs, press centers to share transcripts and clips
Prioritize wire coverage (AP, Reuters) more than ever. These news organizations are deeply embedded in LLM training and retrieval pipelines. In the LLM era, the wires take on increased importance.
The LLM ecosystem will evolve, but this blind spot exists today. Communications leaders who build with AI-era discoverability in mind will shape what LLMs remember—and will be best positioned to protect and promote their brand’s influence as these systems become the default source of information.