At Voxus, we work with many companies that enable or use AI as a core part of their offer – from silicon to infrastructure to software and services. As the tech industry pivots en masse to adapt to what’s being called the biggest technology shift since the internet, the bar has never been higher for getting the media’s attention and earning media coverage.
There’s no question that the AI boom has shifted the media’s perspective on what matters. Massive fundraising rounds and eye-popping valuations have skewed the landscape for what’s considered a “successful” startup. These days, tier 1 business media and even some tech media take a lot of convincing to cover anything under a $100 million round. For more established companies, simply adding a few AI capabilities to existing products isn’t particularly novel, it’s table stakes – like moving applications to the cloud was not that long ago.
At the same time, there is rising skepticism among reporters who cover the space. They’re asking hard questions. Are we in an AI bubble or is it a meaningful platform shift? What’s the proof that AI is really causing disruption? Where is the ROI? Is AI being used responsibly and ethically?
In this kind of environment, you need a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t.
Here are 5 ways to build a story that can help generate media coverage:
1. Focus on Impact over Features
We’re long past the “gee whiz” phase of the AI era. The media care less about what AI might be able to do and want to hear more about what it is doing in the real world. Stories have to focus on specific, concrete, quantifiable results to be meaningful.
For example, “AI-assisted troubleshooting enabled our customer to reduce network downtime by 30%,” or “AI-enabled computer vision cut down manufacturing product defects by 20%.”
Hard metrics transform a product feature into a business solution.
2. Provide Human-Centric Narratives
Technology is a tool; the story is the transformation it enables.
Frame the narrative around how you’re applying AI or a related technology to address significant human or business pain points. This involves showcasing the end-user benefit, whether it’s freeing up network engineers from tedious tasks to focus on more critical issues, enabling retailers to monitor self-checkout in real time to cut down on theft, or dramatically reducing AI data center power and water consumption.
(Those are some real-world stories we’re helping our clients tell.)
3. Offer Meaningful Differentiation
In a market as crowded and noisy as AI, companies often start to sound alike. To stand out, you must define how you can deliver what no other competitor can genuinely claim.
This requires a ruthless assessment of the unique data, proprietary algorithms, or specific domain expertise that clearly answers the question: “What are you delivering (in terms of benefits) that is genuinely exclusive to your platform/technology/product/service?” If you’re just incorporating AI buzzwords into your existing stories (“We’re 20% more agentic!), it’s not going to sell.
4. Have an opinion
The advent of AI is raising profound questions that cut across ethics, data governance, national technology sovereignty, long-term societal impact, job displacement, and sustainability. These are not topics to be avoided; they are opportunities to lead a responsible conversation, demonstrate maturity, and stand out as a principled voice in the industry.
Try positioning company executives and founders as not merely developers of technology but as authoritative thinkers who profoundly understand both their customers’ priorities and industry-specific pain points and the larger forces shaping their markets.
5. Back insights – and claims – with data
Whatever AI product you’re selling, validation is essential. Give media access to proprietary data, original research, or unique industry insights derived from your product/platform’s usage.
Tangible evidence of authority can establish your company as a key source of truth for the media and industry analysts. The more you can deliver the data that helps the media tell the story of what’s happening in AI, the more likely they are to come to you proactively when they need perspective.
The pace of change in AI is astounding. The ultimate story of how it will impact tech and the world at large is still being written. If you want to be a part of it, consider the keys above. And if you’re struggling to put them into practice, reach out to us. Voxus can help.