GEO Still Needs That Human Touch

PR is moving faster than ever. Human behavior, influence channels, and the whole digital ecosystem are shifting so daily it’s enough to give you whiplash. Add in AI and the evolution of search, and the landscape of B2B discoverability has become a game of 3D chess.

Right now, everyone is looking for the "fast, efficient, and cheap" way to use new tools to solve old problems like volume and crawlability. Brands are panicking and agencies are pivoting, but here’s the reality: You can’t automate experience. You can buy the latest software, but you can’t buy the years of intuition it takes to know which stories will actually land. Similarly, agency leads will say sure when a client says “make it go viral,” while a social creator cringes in the background. Your social team knows that virality requires that instinct, it’s not something you can manufacture. Training a strategy requires patience, a "do more with less" philosophy, and—most importantly—human connection. That’s why we built Althea Labs.

The Storytelling Deficit

It turns out, I’m not the only one who thinks so. Even the Wall Street Journal is reporting that companies are "desperately seeking storytellers" to make sense of their data and connect with actual humans. And they still want those storytellers to be “fast, efficient, and cheap.” Which, with the world and economy what it is, puts actual creative storytellers in a tough spot. My entire philosophical approach to work and life is remembering that everyone is a human being. We are all looking for genuine connection and meaningful contributions.

Our superpower at Althea exists outside of the many tools that tell you how your content is performing. While nearly half the content online is now AI-generated, both search engines and AI models still overwhelmingly prefer human-written content—in fact, over 80% of top-ranking results and citations still come from human writers. At the end of the day, the customers you want to attract aren’t tools—they’re people just like you.

The "PR Plus" Methodology

Modern discovery is interconnected. Over half of Americans now use AI tools for research and decision-making, which is why we developed our "PR Plus" Methodology. We don't just "do PR"; we build a feedback loop between authority and infrastructure to ensure you appear across every research touchpoint.

• Traditional PR (Authority): Earned media placements build the third-party credibility that signals to both humans and AI systems that your brand is a legitimate, credible option.
• SEO & Schema (Infrastructure): We optimize the backend—meta descriptions, SEO titles, and structured data—to make your site "readable" for LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude.
• Community (Human Proof): Since roughly 40% of AI training data comes from Reddit and other community-fed platforms, we ensure an authentic presence where your customers actually talk.
• Content (The Bridge): Journalist-crafted blog posts, videos, and FAQs feed LLMs the context they need to recommend you accurately while answering human questions directly.

Technical Roots, Human Voice

You may need a technical strategy to speak to the "tools" so your company can reach a person, but once you get there, the rest of your content needs an authentic voice and valuable substance so that a person can  connect with what you do in a real way. We are technical experts grounded in human storytelling.

Althea blends experienced analysis of tool data with deep roots in online culture. We help your team hone their message so that every insight from a tool becomes a brainstorm, and every brainstorm becomes a piece of content that actually moves the needle.

Althea is rooted in what great PR has always been: telling authentic stories, creating trust, and building real relationships. We’re just doing it now with a GEO-first lens. Why? Because human experience matters deeply. Period.