News Australia turns AI search research into marketer playbooks

News Australia has turned its The Prompt AI research initiative into a category-by-category advisory series, launching The Prompt Report with a retail playbook for marketers navigating AI-driven product discovery.

The publisher says the first report draws on two years of work spanning more than 148,000 cited pages and 310,000 AI-generated answers, with the retail edition focused on how brands appear in recommendations from ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.

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From search research to retail advice

The initiative is led by Mike Cook, who heads News Australia's Search, AI and Emerging Platforms team. The new series extends research the company has been taking to marketers this year around the changing role of AI assistants in discovery and consideration.

“The traditional search funnel has turned into a direct conversation with AI software,” Cook said.

“Getting recommended by AI isn't about prompt tricks, it's about having a trusted reputation across the web that these systems have every reason to cite.”

That argument is broadly consistent with WARC analysis published in February, which found long-term branding accounted for 63 per cent of LLM visibility, while 37 per cent could be influenced by current marketing activity.

News Australia's response is what it calls “dual publishing”: structuring content so AI systems can process it while maintaining an engaging experience for human readers.

Previous Mediaweek coverage of The Prompt found the publisher had reshaped its search operation around AI and emerging platforms, with 12 specialists working across 22 websites.

The playbook is also a services push

The report sits alongside a commercial offer from News Australia. The company says it will provide bespoke AI audits, strategy workshops and specialised content creation, working with agency partners Medium Rare Content Agency and Suddenly.

Its pitch combines structured website information with broader brand activity and third-party coverage, which News Australia argues can strengthen the signals AI systems use when generating recommendations.

The approach moves the conversation beyond conventional SEO, with the publisher positioning AI discoverability as a wider brand and reputation challenge rather than solely a technical optimisation exercise.

The retail edition is the first in the series, with reports covering travel, food, beauty and luxury goods scheduled for release over the coming months. The Prompt Report: Retail can be downloaded here.