McKinsey Says Your Website Accounts for Just 1% of AI Citations. Here’s What Influences the Rest.

Most businesses still think they control their digital identity.

They control the website. They approve the product descriptions. They choose the case studies, write the executive biographies and decide which claims appear on the About Us page. The organisation spends considerable time and money ensuring this owned information is presented correctly.

Then a potential customer asks an AI assistant which companies they should consider.

The answer may be built almost entirely from information the company did not publish and does not control.

McKinsey’s 2026 State of the Consumer report contains a statistic every marketing and communications director should examine carefully. In its analysis of consumer-goods queries, brand-owned websites provided only around 1% of the sources cited by large language models. Even among the ten most frequently cited websites, brand sites accounted for between 3% and 10% of citations.

This does not mean that websites no longer matter. It means that a website is only one part of the evidence AI systems use to understand, compare and recommend a brand. The other 99% is where public relations becomes commercially important.

AI has changed the journey before the website visit.

The traditional digital journey assumed that a prospective customer would search for a product or service, scan a page of links and visit several websites before making a decision.

That journey is being compressed.

Consumers and business buyers can now ask an AI system to explain a category, identify credible suppliers, compare several organisations and recommend the strongest option. The user may reach a shortlist before visiting a single company website.

McKinsey found that approximately one quarter of consumers in its five-country survey already use generative AI for shopping. Among Generation Z respondents, 28% used generative AI tools for shopping, and 60% regularly used the AI summaries appearing in traditional search.

The study did not include Romania, so its percentages should not be presented as Romanian consumer data. The structural change it identifies, however, is not confined to those five markets. AI-generated discovery is becoming part of the information environment in which Romanian companies compete, particularly in technology, financial services, energy, manufacturing and other sectors where buyers conduct extensive research before contacting a supplier.

The commercial question is therefore no longer simply:

Will customers find our website?

It is also:

Will an AI system include us in the answer before the customer decides which websites are worth visiting?

Your website cannot independently establish your credibility.

A company website remains the most useful place to publish accurate information about services, leadership, locations, technical capabilities and experience. It provides structure, clarity and a primary source that search engines and AI systems can examine.

But every company describes itself positively.

The website can say the organisation is innovative, trusted, experienced and market-leading. Those words carry limited weight unless the wider public record supports them.

AI systems encounter a much broader information environment. Depending on the question and platform, that may include respected media coverage, trade publications, analyst commentary, customer reviews, industry directories, professional profiles, regulatory information, forums, video platforms and other third-party sources.

When those sources confirm the company’s claims, the public record becomes coherent. When they contradict one another, contain outdated information or barely mention the organisation at all, the brand becomes more difficult to understand and recommend.

McKinsey calls this inconsistency “signal dissonance". It is a useful description of a problem many companies do not know they have.

The website says one thing. Media coverage suggests another. Old directory listings use an obsolete description. Review platforms emphasise a problem the company believes it resolved. Executives describe the business differently in interviews and professional profiles. AI systems are then expected to turn these conflicting signals into one confident answer.

They may not.

AI visibility is not another name for SEO

Search engine optimisation remains important. Websites still need sound technical foundations, clear structure, useful content and pages that search engines can access and understand.

But traditional SEO concentrates heavily on the performance of owned pages in search results. AI visibility concerns the wider evidence environment from which answers are constructed.

That makes it partly a technical discipline but also a reputation and AI GEO expertise discipline supported by strategic public relations.

If an AI answer relies substantially on third-party sources, the company must ask different questions:

• Is the organisation covered by the publications that matter in its market?

• Are its specialists quoted on the subjects for which the company wants to be recognised?

• Do independent sources confirm its expertise and experience?

• Is company information consistent across credible platforms?

• Are important claims supported by named evidence?

• Is outdated or inaccurate information being identified and corrected?

• Does the public record distinguish the business from its competitors?

No legitimate agency can guarantee that a particular AI platform will cite or recommend a company. Models, retrieval systems and answers change. Any promise of guaranteed placement should be treated with caution.

A company can, however, improve the quality, consistency and authority of the information available about it. That is the foundation on which sustainable AI visibility must be built.

Earned media has acquired a second life

For years, businesses have valued earned media because it provides reach and independent validation. A credible publication covering a company or quoting one of its experts creates something advertising cannot reproduce: third-party evidence.

AI adds another potential layer of value.

A strong piece of earned coverage may reach the publication’s immediate audience. It may remain discoverable through conventional search. It may also become part of the body of material AI systems consult when answering future questions about the company, its market or its expertise.

This does not mean every press mention improves AI visibility. Relevance and authority matter. A copied press release distributed across weak websites does not carry the same value as an original interview, informed analysis, or independently reported article in a respected publication.

Volume is not a substitute for credibility.

This is why serious strategic media relations is becoming more important, not less. The objective is not to manufacture hundreds of references. It is to establish a reliable pattern of third-party evidence around the subjects that matter commercially.

The communications team must understand what the AI sees.

Most companies monitor media coverage, search rankings, social engagement and website traffic separately. Few examine how the complete information environment shapes AI-generated answers.

That separation is becoming a weakness.

A practical AI-visibility review should begin with the questions real customers, investors, employees and partners ask. Which companies are recommended? What characteristics are attributed to them? Which competitors appear consistently? Which sources support the answer? Is the organisation absent, misunderstood or presented in a way that weakens consideration?

The answers should then be tested across multiple AI platforms and over time. One prompt on one day is not a strategy. AI responses can vary because of wording, location, model updates, personalisation and changes in available information.

The purpose of monitoring is not to produce an attractive dashboard. It is to identify correctable weaknesses in the public record.

Perhaps the company has strong technical expertise but no visible experts. Perhaps it serves an important sector without publishing anything specific to that market. Perhaps its most authoritative coverage is several years old. Perhaps competitors are consistently associated with a category that the company believes it owns.

Each of those findings should lead to a communications action.

More AI-generated content will not solve the problem.

The easiest response is to produce more content using AI. That is also how the internet becomes saturated with competent but interchangeable material that contributes no original evidence.

If every competitor publishes the same explanation, based on the same sources and written in the same frictionless language, none of them becomes more authoritative.

Companies need material that adds something identifiable: original data, a defensible opinion, technical detail, documented experience, named expertise or a useful explanation grounded in the realities of their market.

They also need independent sources willing to examine and reference that expertise.

AI can support research, structure and production. It cannot manufacture the underlying authority. It cannot create genuine client experiences, independently verified results or trusted relationships with journalists and industry stakeholders.

The cheaper content becomes, the more valuable credible evidence becomes.

What should companies do now?

First, establish how important AI-assisted discovery is likely to become in the company’s customer journey. A complex B2B purchase will behave differently from a routine retail purchase, but both increasingly involve AI-supported research.

Second, audit the public record rather than examining the website in isolation. Check how the company is described across media coverage, executive profiles, reviews, directories and other sources that influence understanding.

Third, define the subjects for which the organisation has a legitimate claim to authority. A company cannot credibly dominate every conversation. It should concentrate its expertise, evidence and media activity around commercially important areas it can genuinely own.

Fourth, create original material that is structured clearly, supported properly and useful enough to deserve citation. Generic thought leadership will not create a distinctive signal.

Fifth, strengthen third-party validation through informed strategic media relations, expert commentary, credible partnerships and evidence that other organisations can examine.

Finally, monitor whether the company’s representation is becoming more accurate and competitive. Measure presence, citation patterns, message consistency and inclusion in relevant recommendations, while accepting that no individual answer can be controlled.

Your reputation is now being summarised by AI.

McKinsey’s 1% finding should end the assumption that a polished website is sufficient to define a brand online.

Your website remains important. But the wider market is continuously producing the evidence from which customers and AI systems decide whether its claims are believable.

That evidence includes what journalists report, what customers experience, what experts say, what employees publish and whether independent sources recognise the company’s competence.

AI has not made reputation less important. It has made the public record easier to summarise and harder for companies to control.

The businesses that succeed will not be those producing the greatest quantity of content. They will be those that build the clearest, most consistent and most credible body of evidence.

Because if your own website accounts for only a small part of the answer, the rest of your reputation is being written elsewhere.

This integrated view of owned content, earned authority and commercial reputation is central to Who We Are and how Lighthouse PR approaches AI visibility.

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About the Author

Ana Maria Gardiner is a senior communications executive, board-level adviser and founder of Lighthouse PR. With extensive experience providing strategic counsel to multinational organisations and leadership teams, her expertise spans corporate reputation, public relations, marketing communications, crisis management and high-stakes communications.

Throughout her career, Ana Maria has led and implemented communications strategies for organisations including JPMorgan, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, Siemens Energy, HEINEKEN, Carrefour, Lexus, Franklin Templeton, BNP Paribas, Sungrow, XTB, Bitget, EssilorLuxottica and Pfizer. Her experience encompasses projects across the Middle East, North Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe, covering a broad range of industries and business environments.

She currently works closely with senior executives and board-level decision-makers, advising Lighthouse PR clients on reputation management, strategic positioning, communications risk management, and the development of responses to sensitive situations and crises.

Ana Maria holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a master’s degree in European Affairs.

About Lighthouse PR

Lighthouse PR is an independent public relations and strategic communications consultancy headquartered in Bucharest, working with organisations across Romania, Central Europe, and South-Eastern Europe. The agency provides senior-led counsel to companies operating in financial services, energy, manufacturing, technology and cybersecurity, transport and logistics, retail, and FMCG.

Its portfolio of services includes media relations, corporate communications, reputation management, crisis communications, crisis preparedness and response, stakeholder and investor communications, social media and influencer management, B2B communications, risk assessments, business continuity planning, resilience framework development, media buying, corporate events, and SEO and website design services.

Lighthouse PR holds ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications and is the exclusive representative for Romania and the Republic of Moldova of Eurocom Worldwide and Crisis Communication Network Europe, two international networks that strengthen the agency’s capacity to manage communications projects and crises with regional and international dimensions.

Through its consultancy model, Lighthouse PR places senior expertise at the heart of every client relationship, from strategy development and reputation management to the implementation of communications programmes and the coordination of responses in sensitive situations.

Lighthouse PR: Clear. Concise. Convincing.