Why embedded AI is the future of PR

In this episode, Muck Rack CEO Greg Galant joins host Jason Mudd to discuss how embedded AI is transforming PR and communications workflows.

Tune in to learn more!

Watch the episode here:

Meet our guest:

Our episode guest is Greg Galant, CEO and cofounder at Muck Rack. A returning guest on On Top of PR, he is a leading voice at the crossroads of PR, technology, and media. Greg is also recognized as an early champion of generative engine optimization, shaping the emerging frontier of brand visibility in an AI-driven world.

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

Why embedded AI is more effective than standalone assistants in PR workflows
How AI preserves messaging consistency and insight accuracy across teams
Ways to make PR teams more adaptable in real time using AI
How AI-powered media intelligence predicts trends and shifts in reputation
Strategies to integrate AI into every stage of PR: discovery, outreach, monitoring, and reporting

Listen to the episode here:

Quotables

“Being able to take advantage of AI is knowing what everyone's doing right now and figuring out which stages of our workflow can benefit from AI and having the right tooling to do that.” — @Greg Galant
“The PR profession's been doing generative engine optimization even before generative AI came to be because when these AI systems were built, they were all trained on news data.” — @Greg Galant
“The work we did a year ago or two years ago is even more valuable today than it was then.” — @Greg Galant
“There's two big buckets. One is: How does AI influence PR, and how does PR influence AI?” — @Greg Galant
“We have to look at this from a macro and a micro level and keep testing and tweaking what we're doing and improving upon it.” — @Jason Mudd

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.

Resources

Guest’s contact info and resources:

Additional Resources:

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Recorded: November 26, 2025

About your host Jason Mudd

Jason Mudd is a nationally recognized public relations expert featured by CNN, Entrepreneur, Forbes, NPR, The New York Times, PRWeek, and The Wall Street Journal.

Named North America’s top PR leader by the World Communication Forum, he serves as Partner of Axia Public Relations — recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

Jason has advised some of the country’s most admired and fastest-growing companies, leading campaigns for iconic brands including American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, GE, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon.

He’s also a professional public speaker, accredited PR practitioner, published author, entrepreneur, and host of On Top of PR with Jason Mudd — a podcast ranked among the top 2.5% globally by Listen Notes and a top 100 marketing podcast on Apple Podcasts. His guests have included leaders from Disney, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, and Wells Fargo. Learn more about Jason at https://www.axiapr.com/team/jason-mudd and jasonmudd.com.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:04 - 00:00:16:23

Greg

I think I think that's another one of those examples where being deliberate about how you want to do your public relations in general is what then lets you be, more efficient and consistent and powerful, using AI to.

00:00:16:26 - 00:00:26:08

Announcer

Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd.

00:00:26:11 - 00:00:32:16

Jason

Hello and welcome to On Top of PR. I'm your host, Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. And today I'm joined by Greg Gallant of Muck Rack.

00:00:32:21 - 00:00:56:07

Jason

We're here to talk about why embedded AI is the future of communication workflows. Greg is a repeat guest on on top of PRX. He's the founder and CEO of Muck Rack, the AI powered PR platform trusted by leading brands, agencies and thousands of journalists worldwide. Greg is a top voice at the intersection of public relations, technology and media.

00:00:56:09 - 00:01:09:06

Jason

He's also recognized as one of the earliest champions in generative engine optimization, the emerging frontier of brand visibility and an AI driven world. Greg, welcome to On Top of PR.

00:01:09:08 - 00:01:12:11

Greg

Greg. Thanks so much, Jason. Thanks for having me back.

00:01:12:13 - 00:01:36:03

Jason

Yeah. My pleasure to have you back. We've had several guests from Muck Rack on the show over the years, and we'll be sure to put a link to each of those episodes, including your past episode in the show notes. So we want to talk about four things today. One, seamlessly connecting workflows. To keeping, messaging and insights accurate, enabling real time.

00:01:36:05 - 00:02:06:02

Jason

Adaptability is the third, and then the fourth is Geo, an AI powered media intelligence analytics. So an important topic is we're starting to, you know, depend more and more on AI and use AI to improve our communication, public relations and overall outreach on behalf of the organization. Let's talk first about seamlessly connecting workflows. Greg, what are some of your recommendations and best practices, for doing that?

00:02:06:05 - 00:02:34:16

Greg

Yeah, I think a key now, in terms of being able to take advantage of AI is knowing what everyone's doing right now and figuring out which which stages of our workflow can benefit from AI and having the right tooling to do that. And, you know, equally as importantly, which benefits, which which pieces of the stage, benefit from having humans involved in, you know, maybe, maybe could benefit from people even spending more time?

00:02:34:19 - 00:02:58:06

Greg

And, and yet, you know, we find a lot of, PR organizations there, you know, they're generally pretty lean groups, and everyone needs to get a lot done. So that leads to a lot of, teams having kind of undocumented and unclear workflows and our own just kind of coming out each person to do their thing, which, you know, works great to an extent.

00:02:58:06 - 00:03:31:25

Greg

But if you really want to scale and get more efficient this year, I think, documenting those workflows, having people do them all in one, one place, and then that's where you can figure out, okay, where do we need to plug, AI into it? And, you know, it's a big part of like, what we're doing here at Microsoft, where, for example, you could be, you know, building a media list, either by importing one or building it within Microsoft, but then having a stage where I can then suggest new journalists to add to that media space than who's already in the media.

00:03:31:25 - 00:03:56:26

Greg

LS kind of like when you set up a, Spotify playlist and you got through your songs that you picked on the playlist, and Spotify just kind of knows what other songs to start playing. And adding to it. But that's just one example. And I think that's where this is big opportunity now for PR teams to, get more efficient by, you know, being very thoughtful about workflows.

00:03:56:28 - 00:04:08:07

Greg

And if they do it right and put people in the loop at the right times, do it without any, sacrifice in quality or accuracy.

00:04:08:09 - 00:04:23:28

Jason

Yeah, I completely agree. And the Spotify example resonates with me because it does is I start adding songs to a playlist. I'm like, yeah, that would be a good one to add. And so with that. So, that's really good. So, you know, I know your company, my track has been really staying on top of AI. You know, you did that.

00:04:23:28 - 00:04:56:05

Jason

Great. Generative pulse, report that really re-energized our industry. And, so that's another reason why I'm glad to have you on the episode today, so we can talk about you know, how AI's being, you know, really, reinvigorating the PR profession. And, like, we were talking before we hit record, you know, about, you know, how what's old is new again and that, you know, media coverage has always been an important way that consumers are valuing, what their, you know, are valuing what other people are saying about your brand.

00:04:56:05 - 00:05:15:21

Jason

And that's why PR becomes so important. And so speaking of, you know, PR, the second thing we wanna talk about is keeping messaging and insights accurate. And I think that's a really important role that PR and corporate communications practitioners play within an organization is to make sure that, you know, the messaging and insights are presented accurately.

00:05:15:23 - 00:05:23:03

Jason

So how can you use, in your mind? How are communications workflows leveraging AI to do that? Correct.

00:05:23:05 - 00:05:59:04

Greg

Yeah, I think this is a great example. Again, where what works kind of what worked well before AI or what we, what kind of best practices you really want to scale down before I work to them better now. So you know, some some teams might have flown kind of a little more by the seat of their pants and just knowing, counting on, a lot of undocumented, norms for how, you know, what's a corporate voice and what's the message you want to get out and your institute, your team's institutional knowledge for how to use stuff versus, documentation.

00:05:59:07 - 00:06:36:22

Greg

But I think this is real opportunity where if you're thoughtful about, the kind of message you want to get out your brand voice, and you documented that for people, it works. This is, you know, that's like that documentation is what works really well to feed into AI, to instruct it on, how, you know, the, the kind of messaging you want to get out there and, and, you know, making sure that, as you're using AI to help draft documents, press releases, come up with, your, your list of who to reach out to, that is really on point with what you want to accomplish.

00:06:36:26 - 00:06:54:21

Greg

00:06:54:23 - 00:07:20:12

Jason

Yeah, that's a really good point. And, you know, I think as we're getting more comfortable using AI, more experienced as a profession, you know, that will continue to become extremely important. This is great, Greg. So let's talk about enabling real time adaptability. I think I believe, you know, the PR requires us to always be adaptable, and, always be open to improvising.

00:07:20:15 - 00:07:35:07

Jason

In our profession, in our, our daily lives, within the profession. But, adaptability is really important. So how can we leverage, real time adaptability when we're building out, you know, I, workflows.

00:07:35:10 - 00:07:57:28

Greg

Yeah. I think that's where, you know, using the right tools and setting them up the right way. There's a lot of opportunities, to be able to do the people on your team a lot of freedom to make adjustments and, you know, edit the way things are done change on the fly. That's also a big portion where I think, media monitoring is really key.

00:07:57:28 - 00:08:36:08

Greg

And knowing in real time, like what's been said about your brand on the web, in broadcast by AI, by social media really makes a big difference because you might start out with your media plan, but very quickly, the news cycle could be changing on you, and you have to catch up with that. And that's why we've always believed having, you know, both, media monitoring platform, completely integrated with the media database and the outreach tool, as we've done with my crack, is really key to being able to, have an effective media relations strategy.

00:08:36:10 - 00:08:58:22

Jason

Yeah, 100%. I agree with you there. And, that's an important tool. And I again, just you guys have made a lot of progress integrating AI. We were talking before we press record about how I remember and since that, you know, you were one of the first, you know, software platforms. That was offering, you know, an AI engine or AI, you know, tool within, your platform.

00:08:58:27 - 00:09:30:11

Jason

And, you know, I think that's really shows to, you know, a testament to your leadership within the organization and quickly adapting, and adopting new technologies within your platform. And, you know, we talked about this before in your previous interview with, with me, but, you know, you guys have really done a good job, I think, of disrupting the space and trying to create a, you know, a more impactful and useful, product, which is what's helped you build a strong brand and reputation, for the company itself.

00:09:30:13 - 00:09:39:24

Jason

This episode is brought to you by Audible. Enjoy 30 days free of Audible Premium Plus by going to ontopofpr.com/audible.

00:09:39:26 - 00:10:04:01

Announcer

You're listening to On Top of PR with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted advisor to some of America's most admired and fastest growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social and web strategies for national companies. And now, back to the show.

00:10:04:04 - 00:10:21:19

Jason

Let's move on to, Geo, an AI powered media intelligence. Analytics. Let's talk about how, practitioners of PR and communication, can leverage those, you know, not as standalone assistants, but as, you know, their communications workflow.

00:10:21:22 - 00:11:01:11

Greg

Yeah. I think this where we found that, in a way that PR profession's been doing geo or gender engine optimization even before, generative AI, came to be because when these AI systems were built, they were all trained on news data. So to the extent, ChatGPT or any other, AI platform had something good or bad to say about your brand, it's because of the work of PR department did before it was even invented, and setting up the brand reputation and the collective news on any given topic.

00:11:01:13 - 00:11:20:06

Greg

But what's really changed now in the last year is that not only does I get trained on news and was out there on the web, but it's able to search it and process it in real time. And and then there's still a lot of misunderstanding out there and people are like, oh, well, they only retrained AI models every few months.

00:11:20:06 - 00:11:51:07

Greg

So I can't really do anything about what it says. But in the last year with AI based search, it's actually when you asked AI question, particularly one that implies some kind of timeliness or, you know, being up to date on, where the world's at. It's instantly reading through and processing, you know, many, many news articles and web pages in formulating it's hands with you and it's giving you citations to show where it got it.

00:11:51:07 - 00:12:14:11

Greg

So if I go to, the AI and I say, hey, what's the best road bike to buy? It's, you know, looking at news articles about, you know, best road bikes and all that to figure out what to recommend to me. And so, you know, if so, if you're doing PR in this example for, you know, road bike companies, I'd say, right.

00:12:14:17 - 00:12:44:00

Greg

It's like you're already doing geo because that article you got place is being cited by AI. So first of all, you should take credit for it. And now you're actually delivering a lot more value to your organization than you were a year ago. Because you're you're, you know, you're having this whole new level of impact. But secondly, then, then you should get, smart about optimizing your media relations strategy for how to influence these AI agents.

00:12:44:00 - 00:13:06:23

Greg

And you can look and know which which outlets are influencing which AI platforms. So, you know, for example, like you get a placement in the New York Times and that be great for influencing Google Gemini. But The New York Times is in the lawsuit with open AI. So open AI won't, read or have access to New York Times articles anymore.

00:13:06:23 - 00:13:45:27

Greg

So, you know, for better or worse, you're not able to impact open AI with The New York Times. But maybe if you went to, you know, say, Axios, which has done a deal with open AI, you can influence open AI, through getting, story piece and Axios and then beyond kind of generally knowing, you know, which platforms or which news outlets influence which AI platforms like I just described, using a tool like, my practitioner to pulse, you can see for your specific product category, which I, or which publications is most influential.

00:13:45:27 - 00:14:17:15

Greg

So maybe if you're, you know, if you're, if you're specialized bikes, like, you know, might be that OpenAI doesn't really go to Axios for road bike advice, but it does is, you know, like a cycling magazine or, you know, something like that. So that's where you can really start to get very scientific about, hey, what is influencing, AI platforms in my product category and then how can I craft my whole media relations and herd media strategy around that insight?

00:14:17:18 - 00:14:41:18

Jason

Yeah, I mean, we're all here on the cutting edge, right? We're all here as the early pioneers, and we're all part of that experiment. And I think the more that we're paying close attention to the nuances that you're describing, you know, the smarter will be and the better advisors will be to our, you know, leadership team and the more insight we'll be able to bring to the, practice of, of, of this type of work.

00:14:41:18 - 00:15:08:03

Jason

So I'm excited about it, you know, not only because, you know, like we talked about, before and like, your study found that, you know, 95% of AI citations come from PR content. So that's really rejuvenated, this profession and made people realize how important the role we're playing in it. And I love your anecdote, Greg, about, you know, the work we did a year ago or two years ago is even more valuable today than it was then.

00:15:08:05 - 00:15:24:00

Jason

And I think that's really important. So, you know, I think we have to look at this from macro and a micro level and keep testing and tweaking what we're doing and improving upon it. Greg, put you on the spot. What do you see as kind of the future of, you know, AI in the role of PR in it?

00:15:24:02 - 00:15:31:26

Jason

If you could kind of put on your, look at your crystal ball for a second, maybe make some predictions of of what you think the future looks like.

00:15:31:28 - 00:16:00:16

Greg

Yeah. I think, you know, one is I think there's two big buckets, and one is like, how does AI influence PR and how is PR influence AI? Oh, to the first area. How does AI influence PR. That's amazing. I, we were talking about at the start of this show with, you know, workflows and figuring out how can how can the PR profession be more efficient, more powerful, more dynamic using AI for their workflow.

00:16:00:16 - 00:16:27:11

Greg

And I think that that there'll be a lot of strides in that over the next year. And it's a big part of what we're working on. But, you know, is impactful. Is that is I think what's even more interesting is the second part, how does PR influence AI, which is everything we're just talking about with Geo and, and how, earned media, that that companies receive really impacts what I says about them.

00:16:27:14 - 00:16:45:29

Greg

And I think over the next year, we're going to see a real flight to quality where, you know, similar to early days of search in AI, SEO, it used to be that you could use a lot of really crude tactics in search to, to boost your rankings. You know, like people would have, like, white text and white background with keywords.

00:16:45:29 - 00:17:19:00

Greg

And in the very early days, search would give a response for that and all of the kinds of shenanigans and very quickly, search engines were like, well, we want to provide good results for our users. So if we see people using these kind of, sketchy tactics for football discovered and ignored and or even penalize, websites for, for doing that, and I think it's going to be similar with, with Geo, where right now you do see some people, you know, maybe they get, you know, articles on really sketchy websites and AI sites.

00:17:19:00 - 00:17:45:11

Greg

It now and then, or, you know, certain certain, kind of crude tactics that can make, make a difference with AI. But, you know, AI is very competitive right now. You can see it between ChatGPT t anthropic, Google's Gemini graph, like they're all fighting for users. So they're all going to want to provide a great user experience and accurate answers.

00:17:45:13 - 00:18:14:06

Greg

And how are they going to do that? They're going to look for quality news sources to cite and to, to inform the answers their AI gives. And, you know, it's up fight. The quality keeps happening then is, banned yet? I think. Well, okay. They're only going to look at quality sources, how they're having a quality sources to, to cover me to, to get our message out there and that, you know, goes back to where it's all this new again, you know, that that's where you have to rely on your PR department.

00:18:14:09 - 00:18:46:26

Greg

So I think it's this huge opportunity for the PR industry. And I think there's the potential of next year for PR to be a, you know, even more an important business function and a growing business function. But to do that, I think the PR profession has to be able to tell this story and connect all their actions from, you know, pitching a journalist to, to writing press releases to the impact that's going to have an AI, and then the impact AI has and driving consumer behavior.

00:18:46:29 - 00:19:07:29

Jason

Yeah, those are good points. And, it's an exciting time to be alive. It's exciting time to be working in the profession of public relations. And, unfortunately, we've started running out of time. I think we could talk about this for days. And, I hope we will continue to do that together, Greg. But I appreciate you, being on, our show today as a repeat guest.

00:19:08:01 - 00:19:13:28

Jason

And, did you just have, any closing comments you wanted to share with our audience about this topic or otherwise?

00:19:14:01 - 00:19:37:20

Greg

Yeah, I'd say just, watch this space. We're going to be, as you mentioned, Jason, we got a lot of attention for our what is AI reading? Study that we released over the summer? It's part of our generative pulse product, where we analyzed, millions of citations by AI to figure out what's our reading, what's informing what it says.

00:19:37:22 - 00:20:04:27

Greg

We're going to be releasing, a new version of that in the coming months. You know, this, this December. So I'd say, you know, make sure you subscribe to my crack. And, we'll be sending out news about that report, which, just like the last one or we are offering for free to the public and I think will shed some really interesting new insights in how I works, because the one constant is that AI is always changing.

00:20:04:27 - 00:20:13:12

Greg

So even even if your knowledge is present up to a few months ago, things, things have changed a lot. And that's what I want to tell everybody. That latest.

00:20:13:15 - 00:20:33:24

Jason

Yep, that's exactly right. Things are changing quickly at lightning speed. Right in front of our eyes. And, you know, you can think one thing is true. And accurate. And just a few days later, it's no longer. So, appreciate you sharing all of your insights with us, Greg. Certainly, if people are interested in connecting with you, they can connect with you on, LinkedIn.

00:20:33:24 - 00:20:35:21

Jason

Is that the best way to do that?

00:20:35:23 - 00:20:54:04

Greg

Yeah. That's right. You can just search for me on LinkedIn, Greg Allen or on, Twitter and Instagram and just ask Gregory because he signed up early enough to get my, nice, first name, but, yeah, follow me in either of those places. Plus, we have the female crack daily and the Mug Crack Weekly, which are both free newsletters.

00:20:54:04 - 00:21:00:08

Greg

We offer, to the public on behalf of my crack so you can find us in any of those places.

00:21:00:10 - 00:21:20:05

Jason

Well, Greg, that sounds great. Thanks again for being here today. And, with that, I want to say thank you for tuning in to another episode of On Top of PR. If there's ever anything I can do for you, please let me know. Otherwise, if you would take a moment to share this episode with a colleague or friend who you think would benefit from watching it, and if you haven't yet, please take a minute to leave us a review we'd really appreciate.

00:21:20:05 - 00:21:30:06

Jason

It's a great way for you to help other people know about our show. With that, thank you again for the opportunity for allowing me to help you stay on top of PR, be well.

00:21:30:09 - 00:21:42:18

Announcer

This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and check out past episodes at ontopofpr.com.

Embedded AI: The future of PR and communication workflows

Watch the episode here:

Meet our guest:

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

Listen to the episode here:

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About your host Jason Mudd

Transcript

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Embedded AI: The future of PR and communication workflows

Watch the episode here:

Meet our guest:

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

Listen to the episode here:

Quotables

Resources

About your host Jason Mudd

Transcript

Liked this blog post? Share it with others!

Comment on This Article

Get Our Insights

Recommendations

Top 10 Posts

5 Most Recent Posts

Categories

About Us

Services

Our Work

Portfolio

Resources

Quick Links