How to write a press release AI assistants will quote

When ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini answers a question about your company or market, it pulls sentences from pages it has found and decides which source to credit. A press release written for that reader looks a lot like a release written for a busy reporter: specific, attributed and easy to check.

This guide covers how to write one, with a before and after rewrite and a checklist at the end.

Why format matters, and where it stops mattering

Start with the limits, because they are real. Independent data says AI assistants rarely cite the wire service's own page. Meltwater found press releases were 0.2% of AI citations in May 2026. Loganix found no press release wire domains in 100 category queries, while releases on Yahoo Finance's /news/ pages were cited. Muck Rack attributes about 84% of AI citations to earned media. We go through those numbers in Do press releases get cited by ChatGPT?

So no rewrite will make a weak placement work. What writing can do is make sure that when your release appears on a domain AI assistants do read, the facts are stated in a form a model can identify, attribute and repeat accurately.

The one data point on structure comes from a vendor. Notified, which owns GlobeNewswire, reported that well-structured releases got 2.6 times more AI citations in a study of 8,000 of its own releases. Its methodology wasn't visible in the materials we reviewed, so treat that as a direction, not a measurement.

There is also a quality argument. Pangram Labs scanned 178,672 releases and found that 48% of PR Newswire releases in June 2026 contained AI-generated text, up from 22% in August 2025. It reported higher rates on PRWeb and Newswire.com. In a feed where roughly half the copy reads the same, a release with checked facts, real names and a human voice is easier for an editor or reader to take seriously.

Start with the headline and first paragraph

Headline: name, verb, specific thing

A headline that works for AI search names the company, says what happened, and includes the most important number. Compare:

• Weak: "Northstar Unveils Next-Generation Solution for the Future of Field Work"
• Better: "Northstar releases Dispatch 3.0, cutting average technician arrival time by 35% in pilot"

The second headline could stand alone as an answer. Keep a subhead for the second most important fact, such as availability or price.

First paragraph: who, what, where, when

Your first paragraph should answer the four questions a model needs to place your news: who (the company, defined in a few words), what (the specific product, deal, hire or result), where (the city or market), and when (a real date). If a model only reads one paragraph, this is it.

Avoid opening with context about the industry. "Field service teams face mounting pressure" says nothing about you and pushes the facts down the page.

Replace adjectives with facts

Fact density

Every paragraph should carry at least one checkable fact: a number, a date, a named person with a title, a named customer or partner, a location. Fact density is what separates a news release from an advertisement, for human readers and for models.

Word limits can push people to cut facts first. Some distributors cap length: 24-7 Press Release lists a 375-word cap on its Mass Media Visibility plan, counting the headline, subhead and boilerplate, with $110 per extra 100 words, as of November 2026. Prices and limits change, so check before you write. Word Got Out doesn't charge per word within plan limits, so the facts can stay in.

Avoid vague superlatives

"Leading," "innovative," "best-in-class" and "world-class" can't be verified. A careful model has nothing to repeat, and if it does repeat one, it has to attribute the boast to you. Swap each superlative for the fact behind it. "The leading platform for utility contractors" becomes "used by 300 utility and telecom contractors in the US and Canada." If you have no fact behind the adjective, delete it.

Data a model can lift verbatim

Write each statistic as a complete sentence that would make sense pasted alone into an answer. Include the unit, the time period, the sample and who measured it:

In a 90-day pilot with 14 contractors, average time from work order to technician on site fell from 26 hours to 17 hours, according to Northstar.

Don't leave key numbers only in an image, chart or PDF. Put them in the text. If you have several figures, a simple table in the body works too.

Quote, boilerplate and naming

One quotable spokesperson line

Most release quotes are filler: "We're thrilled to bring this to our customers." Nobody repeats that. Give the spokesperson one sentence that says something specific, opinionated or explanatory, and attribute it with full name and title on first use.

"The hard part of dispatch isn't finding a technician. It's finding the one with the right certification and the right part already in the truck," said Dana Ruiz, chief product officer at Northstar.

A line like that can be quoted in an answer about dispatch software, with your company and spokesperson attached.

A boilerplate that defines the company in one sentence

The first sentence of your "About" section is the closest thing you have to a definition a model can reuse. Make it say what the company is, who it serves and what it does, in plain words:

Northstar is a field operations platform that helps utility and telecom contractors schedule, dispatch and track field technicians.

Add founding year, headquarters and one scale fact in the second sentence. Use the same boilerplate across every release, your website and your profiles, so the definition repeats everywhere a model looks.

Consistent naming

Pick one form of the company name and one form of each product name, and use them every time. "Northstar," "NorthStar Inc.," "Northstar Field" and "the Company" can read as four entities. Name the product in full on first mention ("Northstar Dispatch 3.0"), and keep spokesperson names and titles identical across releases.

Add FAQ-style facts

People ask AI assistants questions, so it helps to have answers phrased the same way. A short "Key facts" or Q&A block near the end of a release gives a model clean, self-contained statements to match against those questions:

• What is Northstar Dispatch 3.0? A scheduling module that assigns field technicians to jobs based on location, certification and parts on hand.
• Who can use it? All existing Northstar customers, at no added cost.
• When is it available? From November 10, 2026.

Keep each answer to one or two sentences, and make sure every fact also appears in the body. This isn't a trick; it's the same information in the shape people ask for it.

Before and after: rewriting a weak paragraph

Northstar is a fictional company. Every name, figure and date below is invented for illustration.

Before

Northstar, an industry-leading innovator in field service technology, is thrilled to announce the launch of its most powerful solution yet. Designed with customers in mind, the cutting-edge platform delivers seamless scheduling and unmatched efficiency, helping businesses of all sizes take their field operations to the next level.

Count the facts a model could repeat: none. There's no product name, no date, no location, no customer type and no result. Every descriptive word is a claim nobody can check.

After

DENVER, November 10, 2026. Northstar, a field operations platform for utility and telecom contractors, today released Northstar Dispatch 3.0, a scheduling module that assigns technicians to jobs based on location, certification and parts on hand. In a 90-day pilot with 14 contractors, average time from work order to technician on site fell from 26 hours to 17 hours, according to Northstar. Dispatch 3.0 is available now to all Northstar customers at no added cost.

What changed

The after version is only a little longer, and every sentence in it could answer a question on its own.

Checklist

• Headline names the company, uses an active verb and includes the key number.
• First paragraph states who, what, where and when, with a real date and location.
• Company and product names are spelled the same way everywhere.
• Every paragraph contains at least one checkable fact.
• Every statistic is a full sentence with unit, time period, sample and source.
• No unsupported superlatives ("leading," "innovative," "best-in-class").
• Key numbers appear in the text, not only in images or attachments.
• One spokesperson quote that says something specific, with full name and title.
• Boilerplate opens with a one-sentence definition of the company, reused everywhere.
• A short block of FAQ-style facts, each answer one or two sentences.
• A person has checked every fact, name and figure before release.
• The release will appear on domains AI assistants already cite, not only on a wire page.

Where it's published still matters

The last item on that checklist is the one writing can't fix. A well-written release that only lives on a wire page is still in the 0.2%. The same release on news domains gives assistants a credible page to quote, though syndicated placements are not journalist-written stories, and nobody can promise a model will cite them.

Word Got Out's editors write releases to this standard, and you approve the final copy before anything is published. Every paid plan measures where AI assistants get their answers about your market before the release and again afterward, with a screenshot of every answer. Start with a free snapshot, or see Launch at $599 if you have news ready.

Frequently asked questions