Expert quotes and AI answers: why editorial coverage is worth earning

Is it worth your time to get quoted in news articles, and does that have anything to do with what AI tools say about your brand? This guide explains how expert quote requests work, looks at what studies actually show about the pages AI tools cite, says plainly what nobody knows yet, and covers the risks.

What an expert quote is, and why it differs from other placements

An expert quote is a short answer from someone who knows the subject, used inside an article the journalist is writing. The journalist asks a question, you answer it, and the journalist decides whether and how to use your words. You don't write the article, you don't control where it appears, and you can't buy a place in it.

That's what separates it from a guest post (which you write and the site publishes) or a paid sponsored article (which is advertising). It also explains why quotes are hard to earn: the journalist is the gatekeeper, and a bad answer gets ignored.

For a brand, the value is plain even without AI in the picture. A reader sees your name next to a useful answer on a site they already trust. The page may link to you, and it may not. And the page exists on the web afterward, where search engines, readers and AI tools can all find it.

How expert quote requests work

Journalists who need sources post queries. Experts see them, send answers, and the journalist picks what to use. Several services run this kind of exchange. One long-running example is Help a Reporter Out (HARO), which Featured.com took over from Cision in April 2025. Its announcement says HARO "will remain free for journalists and sources, supported by newsletter ads," and delivers daily opportunities by email.

1. 1Journalist posts a queryAsks a specific question with a deadline
2. 2Expert repliesSends a short, relevant answer
3. 3Journalist decidesUses it, edits it or ignores it
4. 4Article is publishedThe expert may be quoted, with or without a link

A few facts about the process, which hold whichever service you use:

• No payment changes hands with the journalist. Paying a journalist to include you isn't part of this route.
• Expect many answers to go unused. A journalist only needs the sources that fit the article.
• Queries come with deadlines. Late replies are usually too late.
• Outcomes vary. You might be quoted with a link, quoted without one, or not used at all. Some journalists post anonymously, so you may not know who you're writing to.

What studies say about the pages AI tools cite

If your goal is to be named in AI answers, you want to know which kinds of pages those tools draw on. Here's what we could read, with each study's size and date. Muck Rack, Semrush and Profound all sell related software, which is a reason to read their studies with care.

Pew Research Center: independent, but narrow

Pew's July 2025 study tracked 900 U.S. adults on an online panel and collected 68,879 unique Google searches from March 2025. Pew looked at the source links shown in Google's AI summaries (up to three source URLs per summary). The most common were Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit, together 15% of the sources in AI summaries and 17% in standard results. News websites made up 5% of sources in both AI summaries and standard results. Pew found .gov sites at 6% of sources in AI summaries against 2% in standard results.

What it doesn't show: Google only, one month, and it counts source links, not how much each page shaped the answer.

Muck Rack: a larger share for journalism, with a commercial interest

Muck Rack, which sells PR software, analyzed more than 1 million links cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, collected in July 2025. It reported that 95% of the links were non-paid media, 89% were earned media and 27% were journalistic content. For prompts that implied recent news, 49% of cited links were journalistic. It also found that the most common age for a cited page was one day, and its own researcher called the data "a time capsule."

What it doesn't show: the pages we could read don't give the number of prompts or define "journalistic" in detail, and the prompts were Muck Rack's own.

Semrush and Profound: forums, reference sites and video lead

Semrush analyzed more than 230,000 prompts on ChatGPT search, Google AI Mode and Perplexity from July 14 to October 12, 2025, covering over 100 million citations. Its finding that matters most here is how fast things change: ChatGPT's citations of Reddit and Wikipedia fell sharply in mid-September 2025, while Google AI Mode and Perplexity stayed fairly stable. Semrush says it can't tell why. News sites moved in different directions: Forbes and PR Newswire gained on ChatGPT after September, while TechRadar fell.

Profound analyzed 680 million citations across three AI platforms from August 2024 to June 2025. It found Wikipedia was 7.8% of all ChatGPT citations, and Reddit was 6.6% of Perplexity's. Both Semrush and Profound sell AI visibility tools.

Why the numbers disagree

Pew puts news sites at 5% of sources. Muck Rack puts journalistic content at 27% of links. Both can be right. They tested different tools, used different questions (Pew used real searches by volunteers; Muck Rack used prompts it designed), counted different things and defined "news" differently.

Two studies, two different shares

Pew Research Center

• 900 U.S. adults
• Real Google searches, March 2025
• News sites: 5% of sources

Muck Rack

• 1 million+ links
• Its own prompts, July 2025
• Journalistic content: 27% of links

Our view: the takeaway isn't "news wins" or "news loses." It's that AI tools draw on many kinds of pages (reference sites, forums, video, news, brand sites), the mix depends on the tool and the question, and it changes quickly. A plan that depends on one page type is fragile.

What nobody knows yet

Be careful here, because this is where overconfident advice shows up.

• We found no study showing that being quoted in an article makes an AI tool more likely to name you. The studies above count which pages get cited. They don't follow a brand from a quote to an answer.
• Cause isn't proven for mentions in general. Ahrefs found a correlation between brand mentions across the web and AI visibility. We describe it in our post on the future of link building. A correlation doesn't show cause.
• Nobody outside the AI companies knows how each tool ranks its sources. Our post on how AI assistants pick their sources covers what's publicly known.
• Patterns shift. The Semrush data shows one tool changing its sources within weeks.

So if someone promises you AI citations from a quote, they're guessing. Google's own page on AI features says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimizations necessary.

What makes a good answer

Journalists skim. A reply that's easy to use gets used.

A reply a journalist can use

• Answer the questionStick to what was asked
• Be specificGive a number, an example or a clear opinion
• Say who you areOne line on your real experience
• Keep it shortA few sentences they can quote as written
• Be fastReply well before the deadline
• Skip the pitchNo product plug in the answer

A reply can be as plain as the one below. The brackets are placeholders, and the question is invented.

Risks to know about

Unlabeled paid placement

Real expert quotes aren't paid. A paid article placement is different. If money changed hands, readers and regulators expect it to be clear. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's native advertising guidance (December 2015) says an advertisement "shouldn't suggest or imply to consumers that it's anything other than an ad." Google's spam policies treat links that are bought or sold to pass ranking signals as link spam unless the link is marked rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow", and some placements carry a label. See our post on link rel attributes.

Our view: a service that promises you a quote on a named site in exchange for money is selling something other than an expert quote, and you should ask how the placement will be labeled.

Fake or stretched expertise

On topics such as health, money and law, Google says its systems give more weight to signs of trust. Our guide to YMYL and E-E-A-T explains what that means. Use real credentials, and don't give personal advice you aren't qualified to give.

Misquotes and misattribution

Journalists can trim or rephrase what you send. And AI tools aren't reliable at tracing text back to its source. The Tow Center for Digital Journalism gave eight AI search tools 1,600 test queries in February 2025, each containing a quote from a news article, and asked for the headline, publisher, date and URL. More than 60% of answers were wrong, and tools often cited copies on aggregator sites such as Yahoo News or AOL rather than the original publisher. So even when a quote of yours appears in an AI answer, it may be credited to a copy of the article, or not credited at all.

Links you don't control

An article may not link to you, or may link with a nofollow or sponsored attribute, or may be edited later. Judge each result as coverage first and a link second.

When this route is a poor fit

Is this route right for you?

Good fit

• You have real, specific expertise
• You can answer fast
• You'd value coverage even without a link

Poor fit

• You need a guaranteed result or date
• You can't discuss your field publicly
• You want AI citations promised

It's also a poor fit if you can't give a useful answer without selling something, if your topic is one that mainstream news sites rarely cover, or if you're hoping a single quote will move AI answers. Slow, steady, relevant coverage is the realistic goal.

What to take away

1. Treat expert quotes as earned editorial coverage. The journalist decides, and nothing is guaranteed.
2. Don't expect a direct line from a quote to an AI answer. No study we found proves that link.
3. Diversify. AI tools cite reference sites, forums, video, news and brand pages, and the mix changes. See where software buyers actually look for one example.
4. Reply well. Answer the question, be specific, be honest about your experience, and be quick.
5. Stay clear of paid-and-unlabeled. If a placement is paid for, expect a label.
6. Measure sensibly. Track coverage, referral visits, brand searches and enquiries. Use our guide to measuring SEO when clicks fall and the routine in how to check whether AI tools mention your brand, and don't read a single AI answer as proof.

Magfellow offers expert quote link building, run through quote request platforms and direct outreach, and you can read how it works on our expert quote page. If you'd rather build relationships yourself, our guide to reaching out to bloggers and our post on co-citation and co-occurrence are good places to start.

Sources

• Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results (July 22, 2025; 900 U.S. adults, 68,879 Google searches, March 2025)
• Muck Rack: What is AI reading? (August 13, 2025; more than 1 million links, July 2025)
• Muck Rack: Experts answer your FAQs on the "What is AI Reading?" report (August 18, 2025)
• Semrush: The most-cited domains in AI (November 10, 2025; 230,000+ prompts, July 14 to October 12, 2025)
• Profound: AI platform citation patterns (June 5, 2025, updated August 2025; 680 million citations)
• Columbia Journalism Review, Tow Center: We compared eight AI search engines. They're all bad at citing news (March 2025; 1,600 queries, February 2025)
• Featured.com: Featured.com acquires Help A Reporter Out (HARO) from Cision (April 2025)
• U.S. Federal Trade Commission: Native advertising, a guide for businesses (December 2015)
• Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search (updated August 28, 2026)
• Google Search Central: AI features and your website (updated December 10, 2025)
• Ahrefs: Brand visibility in AI systems (December 2025; 75,000 brands)

Checked on 6 October 2026.