To write a press feature that AI engines quote, give them sentences they can lift: one specific, dated, attributable fact per paragraph, on a question people actually ask, published under a real byline on an indexed publication. Muck Rack's analysis of more than 25 million AI citations found journalism took 27% of them and earned media 84%, so the feature has to look and behave like journalism rather than like a landing page.
What do answer engines look for in a source?
Google states the technical bar plainly. To appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet, and there are no additional requirements, no special schema and no AI text file. The same page notes that AI features use query fan-out across subtopics, which means they pull from a wider set of pages than a classic ten blue links result.
The editorial bar comes from the citation data. Muck Rack's May 2026 report found earned media took 84% of citations across ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, paid or advertorial content took 0.3%, and journalism citations spanned more than 20,000 outlets. Google's helpful content guidance asks whether a page offers original information, reporting, research or analysis, and whether it carries a byline that leads to more about the author. A feature that meets both bars is a citable object. One that reads as an advertisement is not.
How should the feature open?
With the answer. The first paragraph is the part an engine is most likely to extract, so it has to stand alone: who the company is, what it does, for whom, where, and one figure or date. Everything the reader would need to repeat the claim goes in those two or three sentences.
Compare two openings for the same imaginary firm. "In a rapidly changing logistics landscape, one company is rethinking the last mile" tells an engine nothing. "A Limassol freight forwarder that clears customs for 300 online retailers has cut average port dwell time to two days, according to figures it shared this week" gives an engine a place, a scale, a result, a date, and a source for the number. The second sentence can be quoted. The first cannot.
What makes a paragraph quotable?
One claim per paragraph, and a full noun in every sentence. Engines extract at sentence level, so a sentence that starts with "it" or "they" loses its subject when lifted. Repeat the company name where a pronoun would be natural in ordinary prose; it reads slightly stiff and quotes perfectly.
Numbers need units and dates. "Grew significantly" is unquotable; "grew from 40 to 110 staff between 2023 and 2026" is a fact. Attribute every figure to a person with a role, or to a document, because Google's guidance on E-E-A-T puts trust first and a named, accountable source is what trust looks like on the page. Cut adjectives that cannot be checked: "leading", "innovative" and "trusted" are the fastest way to make a paragraph read as advertising.
Which topics get quoted most?
Trend questions. Muck Rack found that industry trend questions drive journalism citations at more than double the rate of how-to questions, and press releases appear 3.5 times more often in trend responses than in best-of responses. On queries that imply recency, journalism's share of citations climbs to 49%, and the same report found content published the previous day received the most citations of any age.
Conductor's 2026 publishing benchmarks, built on more than 13 million publisher citations, found educational prompts produced 36.4% of them, recommendations 14.2% and comparisons 10.6%. So the strongest frame for a company feature is a question the market is asking right now, answered with the company as the worked example: what is changing, what it costs, what the alternatives are, and what this company's numbers show.
What does the publication side need to be right?
Four things, all of which a good catalog lists per title. The article section must be indexed. The page must not block snippets, since Google's preview controls such as nosnippet and max-snippet limit what AI features can show. The piece needs a byline that leads to an author page. And the label matters: the 0.3% figure for paid and advertorial content means a visibly tagged sponsored article is the format least likely to be cited, but that observation is not a reason to omit paid-content disclosure. Select for audience relevance and publication quality; citations remain unguaranteed.
Turnaround is the fifth. Because recency drives citations, a title that publishes within days of approval gives the feature a better chance than one that takes a month. At Qubba Publishings & PR each title lists turnaround, indexing, dofollow status, label and supplier-reported AI source status, which is unverified, and every placement includes the article and one revision round, so the brief you supply is what decides the quality of the extractable sentences.
A working structure for a 700 word feature
- Headline as a claim or a question. State the trend or the result, in plain words, with the company or the market in it. No puns.
- Paragraph one: the answer. Company, what it does, where, since when, one number, one source. Two or three sentences.
- Paragraph two: the trend. Why this matters now, with one sourced external figure and its date. This is the paragraph that ties the feature to the question people ask.
- Paragraphs three and four: the company's numbers. What changed, over what period, measured how. One claim per paragraph, each attributed.
- Paragraph five: a named voice. A quote from a person with a role, saying something specific about cause and effect, not about being excited.
- Paragraph six: what happens next. Dated plans, markets, hires, or the next measurable milestone.
- Boilerplate. Two sentences on the company, founding year, location, and the website, so the engine has the entity facts together in one place.
Read the finished piece as an engine would: take any paragraph on its own and ask whether it answers a question about the company or the market. If it does not, it is either filler or advertising, and both belong outside a press feature.
Frequently asked questions
Does adding schema or an llms.txt file help a feature get cited?
Not according to Google, which says no special schema.org structured data, AI text file or markup is needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Indexing, snippet eligibility and content that answers the question do the work; the publication controls the first two and the brief controls the third.
How long should a press feature be?
Long enough to hold five or six specific, sourced paragraphs, which lands around 600 to 800 words.
Length itself is not a signal in Google's AI features guidance; extractable sentences are.
A short piece with three quotable paragraphs beats a long one that repeats the same claim.
Should the feature link to my website?
Yes, so readers and engines can confirm the facts at the source.
Google asks publishers to mark paid placements rel="sponsored", so treat the link as a path for verification rather than a ranking lever, and make sure the page it points to states the same figures as the feature.
Can one feature be enough?
It can be cited, but Muck Rack found content published the previous day is cited most and journalism's share rises on recency queries.
One strong feature establishes the facts; a monthly cadence keeps a current version of them in front of the engines.