The Gartner claim that public relations and earned media budgets will double by 2027

When industry optimism outruns the evidence.

A prediction that earned media budgets will double by 2027 is rapidly becoming one of the most optimistic narratives circulating the public relations industry.

The Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) goldrush argument is seductive. AI large language models (LLMs) favour credible third-party sources such as earned media. Public relations practice supports the production of this type of content. Therefore organisations seeking visibility in AI should invest more in public relations.

Where the claim comes from

The argument originates from a blog post published by Gartner in January as part of a lead generation campaign promoting a webinar for chief communications officers.

“By 2027, mass adoption of public LLMs as a replacement for traditional search will drive a 2x increase in PR and earned media budgets.”

The blog carries the authority of the Gartner brand but lacks the evidence normally associated with its research publications. No methodology is published and there is no underlying data disclosed.

I'd welcome the opportunity to review any data if it does exist - though even with supporting evidence, the 2027 timeline looks implausible given where the industry currently stands.

How a marketing claim became industry fact

The prediction suggests that widespread adoption of AI, replacing traditional search behaviour, will drive a doubling of earned media budgets as part of public relations investment by 2027.

The problem is that the claim has escaped its original context. It now circulates as fact, repeated in keynote presentations, agency marketing, pitch decks and LinkedIn commentary as evidence that AI will trigger a boom for public relations.

The gap between prediction and lived experience

This enthusiasm sits awkwardly alongside the lived experience of many agencies and communications teams, where budgets are under pressure and headcount is being scrutinised.

It is also difficult to reconcile with an earned media environment that has been eroded by technology platforms for the past 20 years. Advertising budgets have been diverted from media to search engines, notably Google, and to social platforms including Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

This structural disintermediation has reduced the commercial sustainability of the very publishers whose coverage is now being positioned as strategically important to technology platforms.

AI vendors are themselves continuing to undermine traditional media business models: the copyright relationships between AI models and publishers remain actively contested.

If earned media is about to become twice as valuable, why are communications teams still fighting for investment and why does the earned media environment feel so fragile?

What we actually know about GEO

Gartner's observation may ultimately prove correct. AI systems do appear to favour authoritative third-party sources. But the path from that insight to a doubling of budgets is far from certain.

GEO - the work to influence how generative AI systems surface sources when producing answers - remains highly contested. The mechanics of how AI models select, weight and attribute sources are still evolving. This is an area where budgets are being directed to support discovery work.

A specific and unresolved example: we do not yet know whether coverage volume, domain authority, recency or citation patterns carry the most weight in AI-generated responses. We have no reliable evidence linking specific media coverage strategies to measurable presence in AI-generated answers.

Where research has been undertaken it is highly contextual to an organisation and its publics. Presenting this as settled science, and worse as settled economics, does the public relations and media industries no favours whatsoever.

What needs to happen instead

AI-driven discovery may indeed increase the strategic importance of earned media. But that case will need to be built through experimentation, careful measurement and honest reporting of what works.

When you see this claim, please challenge the argument. And if we are set to see a boom in public relations work, some of that investment will need to be diverted to ensure the sustainability of earned media.

Further reading

This essay was originally posted on my Substack. The newsletter is read by more than 5,000 communications and public relations practitioners twice a week. We take a slower, critical perspective to distilling news, research and industry developments into actionable briefings to help you at work.