Brands must measure how they appear in AI-powered search, as Launchmetrics is adding an AI Visibility, or AIV, score to its existing media impact value dashboard. The new metric is designed to show how large language models such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini represent brands, and it will sit alongside traditional MIV rankings during major fashion events including New York Fashion Week.
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The shift answers a growing demand from clients. Rachna Shah, CEO of KCD, says larger fashion houses began asking about generative engine optimization strategies over the past year, and that brands which already tracked MIV were the first to press for AI visibility metrics. "It first started coming up over a year ago, especially during new business proposals," she says. "The appetite from brands is definitely there." KCD has long worked with Launchmetrics to map reach and social conversation through MIV scores, and those relationships helped surface the need for AIV.
Launchmetrics built AIV to quantify a brand's discoverability in LLM responses and to connect that intelligence back to earned media. The dashboard will display both a brand's MIV and AIV scores, show the share of value drawn from each, flag brands that stand out in AI search, list which editorial voices are cited in AI answers, and compare AI results across cities. Alison Bringé, Launchmetrics' chief marketing officer, frames the change bluntly: "PR is definitely the new SEO." She says the metric gives brands a way to see what the LLMs are presenting about them and how that compares with traditional media impact.
Launchmetrics' chief strategy officer, Arnaud Roy, found while building AIV that LLMs lean on fresh editorial content to assemble answers, meaning authoritative press coverage carries outsized influence in AI-generated responses. Multiple industry studies, the company says, show that over 80% of what LLMs cite about a brand today traces back to earned media. Bringé and Roy expect some budget reallocation, primarily drawing from SEO and search engine marketing, and Bringé points to a Gartner prediction that PR budgets will double in the coming year as brands prioritise presence in AI narratives.
Agency leaders are already advising clients to diversify where and how they tell brand stories, encouraging longer-form journalism, podcasts, Substack and other earned surfaces that can feed LLMs. Shah says agencies are learning alongside clients, and that brands will need to experiment to discover which media best lifts their AI visibility. Launchmetrics will roll out AIV in the context of the fashion calendar, and the metric will offer the first systematic way for houses to track how editorial coverage translates into AI search exposure.
