Founder & Chairman, 5W AI Communications · Publisher, Everything-PR
Ronn Torossian is shaping AI — and the answers inside the chatbox.
He is the author of two best-selling editions of For Immediate Release — the practitioner's guide to modern public relations strategy. He has been an industry leader for decades. Now he's building the AI Communications era.
Torossian is the founder and chairman of 5W AI Communications, launched in 2003 — the AI Communications Firm, combining public relations, digital marketing, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and AI-visibility research for B2C and B2B clients across beauty, technology, entertainment, corporate reputation, and crisis communications. An Inc. 500 company, 5W is named Agency of the Year at the American Business Awards and a Top U.S. PR Agency by O'Dwyer's.
He was a partner and chief marketing officer of JetSmarter, the private-aviation unicorn acquired by Vista Global, parent of VistaJet.
He is the publisher of Everything-PR — thirty-plus publications of original reporting and AI-visibility research, built to be cited by the AI engines — and has guest-lectured on communications and media strategy at Harvard and other universities.
More than a third of consumers now begin product research with AI, not Google. Torossian's work is to influence the answer — inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Start product research with AI, not Google.
Get the book: For Immediate Release on Amazon
The inaugural 5W Reputation Index reveals how AI engines describe founders of AI labs. The study shows that reputation in AI-mediated discovery tracks source bases, not fame, offering crucial lessons for founders on shaping their narratives.
AI regulation is moving faster than most brands realize. State attorneys general, FTC, and the EU AI Act are accelerating enforcement. Most CMOs are unprepared. Brands without a coordinated AI disclosure posture carry unhedged regulatory exposure across multiple vectors. This article outlines key facts, applicable rules, enforcement vectors, and how to build an effective AI disclosure posture before it’s too late.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) has rapidly become a venture thesis, attracting over $250 million in disclosed capital from leading VC firms. This article examines the key players like Lightspeed, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins, and their investment strategies in AI communications infrastructure, highlighting the rapid growth and future implications of this emerging category.
The funded company directory, the funds writing the checks, the rounds, the patterns, and the M&A watch. Profound, Peec AI, Scrunch, Daydream, Memo, Muck Rack, Perplexity, Glean — every AI Communications round in one tracker.
This article explores how AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews build responses, detailing the two main modes (trained knowledge and live retrieval), the six steps from question to answer, and the five factors that make a source rank highly. It also explains what determines which entities are named in an AI answer and offers five key takeaways for communications professionals on how to influence AI outputs.
AI Communications is the discipline of building authority across AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. This article explains why founders need a distinct AI Communications strategy, separate from their company's, to manage their personal reputation and influence the information presented to investors, recruits, journalists, and board members.
A thought experiment poses the scenario of a brand disappearing from ChatGPT, highlighting the critical need for AI Communications. This article outlines what happens when a brand isn't visible to AI, what can be done immediately, what should have been done six months ago, and three crucial next steps to build AI visibility infrastructure and avoid a crisis.
This article clarifies the differences between AI Communications, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), explaining their unique metrics, timelines, and how they fit into a strategic hierarchy. It emphasizes the importance of understanding each discipline to effectively allocate marketing budgets and achieve optimal content visibility across different platforms, including traditional search engines and AI answer engines.
The most consequential communications work today is not being done by communications teams. AI Communications is the discipline of building authority across AI answer engines alongside earned media, digital, and influencer channels.
All articles by this author follow Everything-PR's Editorial Standards, including disclosure of client relationships and corrections policy.