It depends entirely on the type of PR. Paying for genuine editorial coverage on outlets AI trusts can be worth it. Paying for wire distribution that sprays a release across aggregator sites is mostly wasted for AI visibility. The spend is only as good as the credibility of where you land.
The part that is not worth it
Wire-distribution PR, where a release goes out to hundreds of low-value reposts, earns almost nothing in AI citations. A BuzzStream analysis of 4 million AI citations, reported by Search Engine Journal, found syndicated press releases accounted for about 0.04% of the dataset (Search Engine Journal).
So if the pitch is "your release on 300 sites," that reach number is mostly meaningless for getting cited by AI. The AI does not treat those reposts as credible.
The part that is worth it
Genuine editorial coverage is a different story. A real article on a credible outlet, written as journalism, is exactly the kind of source AI engines cite. The same analysis found original editorial coverage made up roughly 81% of news citations.
Google has hinted at the same thing. Its VP of Product for Search, Robby Stein, said being mentioned by other sites can help with AI recommendations, comparing how AI gathers answers to how a person researches a question (Search Engine Journal, on digital PR and AI recommendations).
So paid digital PR can be worth it when the spend buys real placements on trusted outlets, not volume on aggregators. Judge it by the credibility of the destination, not the size of the distribution list.
How to decide
Ask one question before you pay: will this earn genuine coverage on an outlet the AI actually reads, or just a release reposted across low-value sites? If it is the former, it can be worth it. If it is the latter, the money is better spent elsewhere.
This is why Cited focuses press effort on credible editorial placement rather than wire volume.
Where to go next
For the data on press, read do press releases get cited by AI. For the full channel mix, see citation channels and platforms.
