The AI-Powered PR Tools Race Just Became Real—But Tools Don't Guarantee Placements

Muck Rack's Media List Agent launch signals the PR tech industry's shift from standalone AI features to agent workflows. But here's what the 10% improvement data actually tells you about performance PR.

Muck Rack launched Media List Agent last week—their first AI agent designed to automate media list building and pitch optimization. Beta customers saw a 10% increase in pitch open and click rates compared to pitches sent without the tool.

That's meaningful. A 10% lift in engagement is the difference between 90 opens and 100 opens on a 1,000-contact pitch blast. But it's also a perfect illustration of why tool-driven PR still fundamentally differs from performance-based earned media.

The tool improved outreach efficiency. It didn't guarantee placements.

And that distinction—between better tools and guaranteed results—is becoming the dividing line between PR strategies that scale predictably and those that remain expensive experiments.

What Media List Agent Actually Does (And Why It Matters)

Media List Agent operates inside Muck Rack's pitching workflow. When you're creating a pitch, you can either build your media list manually or let the agent suggest journalists to add or remove based on:

• Your pitch content
• Journalists' recent coverage
• Their stated interests
• Historical engagement patterns

The agent surfaces up to 50 recommended journalists with explanations for each match, including relevant articles and location data. It's powered by Muck Rack's editorially verified journalist database, which means the recommendations aren't hallucinated—they're based on actual coverage history.

In beta, the average customer using Media List Agent saw that 10% increase in pitch open and click rates. Muck Rack attributes this to "fewer irrelevant pitches and stronger alignment between stories and journalists' interests."

That's tactically useful. If you're sending 500 pitches per month and your current open rate is 15%, a 10% improvement means you're getting 7-8 more opens per campaign. Multiply that across a year of pitching, and you're looking at meaningful incremental gains.

But here's the question no one's asking: what percentage of those opens convert to placements?

The Tool vs. Performance Gap That PR Teams Keep Ignoring

According to Muck Rack's own 2026 State of AI in PR report, only 12% of PR professionals are currently using AI agents. Most teams are still operating with standalone AI features or no automation at all.

Media List Agent is designed to close that gap—to make agent-driven workflows practical for PR teams who haven't figured out how to integrate AI into their daily operations.

The problem isn't adoption. It's expectations.

Tools like Media List Agent optimize the input side of PR: who you pitch, when you pitch them, how well your pitch aligns with their coverage patterns. That's valuable. But it doesn't change the fundamental dynamic that most PR operates on hope, not guarantees.

You send better pitches to better-matched journalists. You improve your open rates. You maybe even improve your response rates. But you still don't know if you'll get coverage. You're still playing a probability game.

Performance PR inverts that model entirely.

What 10% Better Outreach Actually Costs vs. What Guaranteed Placements Deliver

Let's break down the math on tool-assisted PR versus performance-based earned media.

Scenario A: Tool-Optimized Traditional PR

• Monthly retainer: $8,000
• Pitches sent: 500/month
• Open rate (without tool): 15% = 75 opens
• Open rate (with 10% improvement): 16.5% = 82 opens
• Conversion to placements: ~8-12% of opens = 6-10 placements/month
• Cost per placement: $800-$1,333
• Certainty level: Low (could be 4 placements, could be 14)

Scenario B: Performance PR (Guaranteed Placements)

• Flat fee: $10,000/month
• Guaranteed placements: 10/month minimum
• Actual placements: Often 12-15 (overdelivery is standard)
• Cost per placement: $833 (fixed)
• Certainty level: High (contractually guaranteed minimum)

The tool-optimized approach might be $2,000 cheaper per month upfront, but it delivers uncertain results with higher variance. The performance model costs more but removes the guesswork entirely.

Now add in the second-order effects:

• Budget planning: With performance PR, you know exactly how many placements you'll get for your Q2 budget. With traditional PR, you're hoping your agency hits their goals but have no recourse if they don't.
• Pipeline attribution: When you know you'll get 10+ placements per month, you can model how earned media contributes to pipeline. When placement volume fluctuates wildly, attribution becomes impossible. We covered this attribution challenge in depth in our AI traffic attribution guide.
• AI visibility compounding: Each earned placement becomes training data for AI models. Consistent volume (10-15/month) builds citation patterns faster than sporadic coverage (4 one month, 14 the next, 6 the next).

Tools like Media List Agent improve efficiency. They don't solve the accountability problem.

The Agent Workflow Evolution (And Why Most Teams Aren't Ready for It)

Muck Rack's positioning is smart: they're moving from standalone AI features to agent-driven workflows. That's the right direction.

Most PR platforms introduced one-off AI tools over the past year—pitch subject line generators, press release summarizers, basic journalist matching. Those features save time but don't fundamentally change outcomes. They're incrementally better versions of manual processes.

Agents are different. They're designed to handle entire workflows, not just individual tasks. Media List Agent doesn't just suggest one journalist—it builds your entire media list, explains its reasoning, and connects that list directly to pitch tracking and placement measurement.

That's a meaningful step forward in PR tech. But it also reveals why only 12% of PR pros are using agents today.

Most PR teams haven't solved the strategy layer. They're still figuring out:

• Which stories actually warrant pitching (versus staying in the owned media lane)
• Which publications matter for AI visibility (not just audience reach)
• How to measure earned media ROI beyond impressions and AVE
• How to integrate earned media into demand generation workflows

An AI agent can't solve those problems. It can execute a strategy more efficiently, but it can't create the strategy for you.

The Pitch Placement Tracking Gap (And Why It's Still Not Enough)

Alongside Media List Agent, Muck Rack launched Pitch Placement Impact Widgets—an industry-first feature that shows when a pitch leads to coverage directly on your reporting dashboard.

This is genuinely useful. Instead of manually tracking which pitches converted, you can see the connection between outreach and placements automatically. That removes a significant operational burden from PR teams who've been doing this in spreadsheets for years.

But here's what it doesn't solve:

It tracks what happens after you get coverage. It doesn't guarantee you get coverage in the first place.

You can have perfect pitch placement tracking and still end up with months where your team sends 500 pitches and lands 3 placements. The measurement is better. The outcome is still unpredictable.

Compare that to performance PR, where the tracking question is simpler: did we hit our guaranteed minimum? (Answer: yes, because it's contractual.) The more interesting question becomes: how did those placements impact pipeline and revenue?

That's the conversation CMOs actually care about. Not "did we pitch the right journalists?" but "did our earned media investment drive customer acquisition?"

What Christian Would Do If He Were Running Your PR Strategy

If I were consulting for a mid-market B2B brand spending $8-12K/month on PR, here's the framework I'd use:

Phase 1: Audit Your Current Placement Consistency

Pull the last 12 months of earned media results. How many placements per month? What's the variance?

If you're getting 8-15 placements consistently, your current strategy might just need optimization. If you're swinging from 2 to 18 depending on the month, you have an execution problem that tools won't fix.

A content health audit can reveal whether your existing content assets are actually supporting your earned media goals.

Phase 2: Separate Tool-Appropriate Work from Performance-Appropriate Work

Use tools like Media List Agent for:

• Tier-1 aspirational pitching (Wall Street Journal, Forbes, TechCrunch)
• Reactive news commentary (where timing > certainty)
• Executive thought leadership (CEO personal brand building)

Use performance PR for:

• Consistent monthly coverage volume (10-15 placements/month minimum)
• Trade and industry publications (where your buyers actually research)
• AI visibility building (sustained citation patterns require consistent placement velocity)

You don't have to choose one or the other. You can run both in parallel. But if your only strategy is tool-optimized pitching, you're leaving guaranteed placements on the table.

Phase 3: Track the Right Metrics (Not Just Pitch Opens)

Open rates and click rates are leading indicators. They don't tell you what actually matters.

Track:

• Placement volume (absolute number per month)
• Placement consistency (variance month-to-month)
• Publication quality (are AI models citing the outlets you're landing in?)
• Pipeline contribution (how many demo requests come from earned media exposure?)

If your PR platform can track pitch opens but can't connect placements to pipeline impact, you're measuring the wrong layer of the funnel.

Phase 4: Model the ROI Difference

Run the math on what guaranteed placements would cost versus what you're currently spending for uncertain results.

Most teams discover they're already paying for 10-15 placements per month through retainers—they're just not getting them guaranteed. The performance PR model often ends up being cost-neutral or cheaper because you're not paying for months where your agency underdelivers.

Phase 5: Integrate Earned Media with Demand Gen

Earned media shouldn't live in a silo. It should feed directly into your demand generation engine. This is what we call the Earned Authority Loop—where PR placements compound into AI visibility.

Every placement should:

• Get repurposed into owned content (blog posts, LinkedIn updates, email nurture sequences)
• Drive to a conversion point (demo request, free tool, gated resource)
• Provide data for your visibility audit (are we getting cited for the queries that matter?)

Tools can help with some of this. But the strategy layer—knowing which placements to amplify, how to repurpose them, and where they fit in your funnel—still requires human judgment.

The Real Question: Are You Optimizing Inputs or Guaranteeing Outputs?

Muck Rack's Media List Agent is a legitimately useful tool. The 10% improvement in pitch engagement is meaningful. The agent workflow approach is where the industry is heading.

But it's still optimizing inputs—better targeting, better timing, better pitch-journalist matching.

Performance PR guarantees outputs—you get 10+ placements per month regardless of how many pitches it takes to get there.

If you're a CMO trying to model how earned media contributes to pipeline, which one gives you the certainty you need to build a forecast?

If you're building AI visibility and need consistent coverage velocity to establish citation patterns, which one delivers the sustained volume required?

If you're tired of paying retainers for months where your agency lands 4 placements instead of 12, which one removes that variance?

Tools are getting better. Agencies are getting smarter. AI is making PR more efficient.

But efficiency isn't the same as certainty. And in a market where earned media directly impacts AI visibility, citation patterns, and buyer trust—certainty is what separates brands that compound their advantages from brands that keep hoping next month will be different.

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Christian Lehman is Co-Founder and Head of Growth at AuthorityTech. We help B2B brands build AI visibility through earned media. Check your AI visibility for free to see where you are being cited—and where you are invisible.