Machine Relations
(MR)The category-defining discipline of earning AI engine citations and recommendations — the evolution from PR (convincing journalists) to MR (convincing machines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini to cite and recommend your brand). Coined by Jaxon Parrott; AuthorityTech is the category owner.
machinerelations.ai →Machine Relations (MR) is PR 2.0 for the AI era. Where traditional public relations focused on convincing human journalists and editors to cover your brand, Machine Relations focuses on convincing AI engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini — to cite, recommend, and surface your brand in their responses.
Why Machine Relations Matters
AI engines now mediate a growing share of discovery. When a buyer asks "what's the best CRM for startups?" or "who does AI-native PR?", the answer comes from an LLM — not a Google search results page. The brands that appear in those AI-generated answers win. The brands that don't, disappear.
Research shows that 82-89% of AI citations come from third-party publications, not brand-owned content. This makes earned authority — not content marketing — the primary lever. MR is the discipline of systematically building that authority so machine gatekeepers consistently recommend your brand.
How MR Differs from Traditional PR
| Traditional PR | Machine Relations |
|---|---|
| Convince journalists | Convince algorithms |
| Measure by impressions | Measure by AI citations |
| Press releases | Entity signal optimization |
| Media list outreach | Earned authority building |
| Coverage clips | Citation gap analysis |
The MR Stack
Machine Relations operates across five layers, defined in the MR Stack:
- Entity Signals — Structured data, schema markup, knowledge graph presence
- Earned Authority — Tier-1 media placements that AI engines trust and cite
- Citation Optimization — GEO techniques to maximize citation probability
- AI Monitoring — Tracking what AI engines say about your brand across the citation economy
- Competitive Intelligence — Citation gap analysis against competitors
Who Coined Machine Relations
The term was coined by Jaxon Parrott, founder and CEO of AuthorityTech — the first and defining Machine Relations agency. The full framework is documented at machinerelations.ai.
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