Chapter 32: Chatbots and Voice Search

Key Takeaways - Be where your audience is: Chatbots allow your brand to provide 24/7 support and information on the platforms your customers already use. - Voice search is about questions: Optimize for voice by creating content that directly answers conversational queries. - Local search is key for voice: For physical businesses, a complete Google Business Profile is the most important factor for voice visibility. - 2026 Reality: AI-powered text chatbots have become the dominant conversational interface over voice search.

Chatbots and voice search are changing how people interact with brands. PR professionals must understand these channels to ensure their brands remain accessible and helpful in a conversational digital environment.

AI Conversation and Brand Discovery Flow

Chatbots in PR

A chatbot is a program that conducts conversations via text or audio. - Customer Service: Providing instant answers to FAQs. - Lead Generation: Qualifying visitors and collecting contact information. - Content Distribution: Recommending relevant articles or videos based on user input.

Best Practices: Always be clear that the user is talking to a bot and provide an easy path to a human handoff for complex or emotional issues.

Voice Search and PR

Voice search occurs when people use assistants like Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant. It is fundamentally different from typed search because it is conversational and typically provides only one answer ("Position Zero").

Optimization Checklist: - Focus on answering questions directly in your content. - Use a natural, conversational tone. - Structure answers clearly (lists or short paragraphs) so they can be easily read aloud by AI. - Ensure your Google Business Profile is 100% complete with accurate hours and photos.

Chapter 32 Toolkit: Conversational PR

Practical Exercises

Exercise 1: Voice Search Audit Ask a voice assistant three common questions about your brand. Document whether the answers are accurate and where the information is being sourced from.

Exercise 2: FAQ Optimization Review your FAQ page. Reformat headers into full questions (e.g., "What is our return policy?") and ensure the first sentence of the answer is a direct, concise response.

DPRI CONNECTION

Conversational interfaces are where customers increasingly discover brand information. By structuring content as answers, you improve your AEO Performance and Citation Authority outcomes.

Next: While AI handles conversation, other technologies are changing the nature of experience itself. Chapter 33 provides a reality check on immersive content, from AR filters to the Metaverse.