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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Guide

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.

Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?

The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

How do customers interact with my newly launched product?

How do I increase the productivity of my employees?

How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?

We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.

So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.

But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!

But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.

We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.

Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIn to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

In this edition of “Conversations with Comms Leaders,” Julia Völzke, Head of Global Media Relations & Reputation Management at Rhenus Logistics, discusses the growing importance of trust and human judgement in an information landscape shaped by AI, the evolution of media relations at Rhenus, and the use of Meltwater to conduct research more efficiently.

1. What was your personal PR highlight of 2026?

2. What might surprise comms leaders in the next two years?

3. What is something you believe about AI in the communications industry that some communication professionals probably would disagree with?

4. What is the biggest benefit of using the Meltwater platform for your team?

1. What was your personal PR highlight of 2026? 

2026 has been a challenging year due to geopolitical tensions, trade conflicts, and economic volatility, and it is likely to remain so. In this environment in particular, communications plays a vital role. We explain developments, provide context, and seek to offer guidance.

My personal highlight is therefore not a single campaign, but the evolution of our media relations at Rhenus. Over the past few years, we have deliberately adopted a more open approach to communications. In 2026, we have seen just how far we have already come. A few years ago, we still had to actively persuade journalists to speak with us. Today, many of them approach us directly to gain our perspective on developments in the logistics industry.

Seeing my colleagues engage with journalists every day, provide transparent context for complex developments in our industry, and give the company a strong and reliable voice is both rewarding and a source of great pride in the team.

What surprises me most is the speed at which AI is changing the rules of the game. It is no longer merely about creating content efficiently. It is also about how information is found and perceived.

The growing importance of trust is not a new insight for those of us working in communications. However, I believe that this issue will become even more relevant beyond our profession over the next few years. Unfortunately, today’s information landscape is often characterised by misinformation, polarisation, and a steadily increasing volume of content generated by AI.

For precisely this reason, reliable facts, transparent communication, and relationships with journalists that are built and maintained over time will become even more important. AI can make many things easier and faster. Credibility, however, continues to come from people who take responsibility, provide context, and build trust.

AI cannot and will not replace us. Full stop. The easier and faster it becomes to create content, the more important the skills that cannot be automated will become: judgement, experience, sensitivity, and common sense.

What experience can AI draw on when a situation becomes complex or contradictory? What happens when the real answer lies between the lines, or when it is necessary to recognise a particular sentiment and interpret it correctly? 

In a world where information is abundant, we need people who can provide guidance. In my view, this is and will remain the primary role of communications.

Meltwater and Mira enable us to gain a quick and efficient overview when researching specific topics. By using predefined searches, we can allow Mira to operate within a clearly defined information environment, giving us considerably more relevant results than an open search would provide.

In the past, searching for, reviewing, and sorting information took several hours. We can now obtain the relevant research results within minutes. We invest the time we save not in conducting more research, but in delivering better communications.

Julia Völzke is Head of Global Media Relations & Reputation Management at Rhenus Logistics, where she is responsible for international media relations and the strategic development of the company’s reputation. She previously held roles at SD Worx and HERING SCHUPPENER, now FGS Global, working in internal communications and corporate communications. Today, she combines her experience across industry, consulting, and logistics with a clear focus on credible communications and international positioning.

Conversation with Comms Leaders #3/9: Julia Völzke (Rhenus Logistics)

For the second edition of “Conversations with Comms Leaders,” we spoke with Christine Bossak of B. Braun about building credibility through corporate action, the disappearance of boundaries between internal and external communications, and whether AI genuinely saves time or primarily makes communications more interchangeable. She also explains how Meltwater helps her team assess critical media coverage more calmly and respond with greater precision.

My personal highlight was the opening of our expanded production facilities for dialysis machines and infusion pumps in April. This represents an investment of approximately €60 million here in North Hesse, at a time when many companies are reducing or cancelling their investments in Germany due to tariffs and other challenging conditions.

For me, the impact of communicating this development was almost greater internally than externally. For people at a location such as Melsungen, an investment decision of this kind means something different than it does to the media. It builds trust and gives people a sense of security.

At a time when virtually any claim can be generated within seconds, credibility is created primarily through what a company actually does, through what it creates or quite literally builds.

Our role in communications is therefore not limited to formulating messages. We must also recognise which business decisions already convey a powerful message in their own right.

I believe the distinction between internal and external communications will disappear completely, if it has not already done so. I am responsible for both areas within one team, so I see every day just how artificial this boundary really is.

B. Braun employs around 66,000 people worldwide. In an organisation of this size, no communication remains truly internal. Employees share information, talk about their experiences, and therefore play a significant role in shaping perceptions of our company. We cannot and should not try to control this.

This makes it all the more important to ensure that internal communications are credible, clear, and consistent, and that they align with what we communicate externally.

At the same time, internal communications is increasingly becoming a crisis management discipline. When something happens outside the company, employees hear about it within minutes through media reports, social networks, or private chats.

In such situations, we cannot wait until every detail has been clarified and several rounds of approval have been completed. We must be able to communicate and act within a very short timeframe, even when not all the facts are yet available.

The real challenge is often not a lack of tools. It lies in decision making and approval processes that date from a time when organisations had a day or more to respond.

I sometimes wonder whether AI genuinely saves us as much time as people claim. On closer inspection, AI may simply shift where we spend our time. Writing becomes faster, but reviewing, coordinating, and deciding may take longer because we suddenly have five drafts to consider instead of one.

In a highly regulated industry such as medical technology, writing is not necessarily the main bottleneck anyway. The much more important question is whether we are permitted to say something in the first place, or whether we actually want to say it. For me, the real value of AI therefore lies elsewhere. It gives us a broader range of material to discuss and perhaps debate more constructively. However, it also means that we have to make decisions more frequently. So the question of how much time AI really saves is not quite so straightforward.

I am also concerned that AI could soon make us all sound even more alike. Corporate communications at large organisations is already somewhat interchangeable. Every company describes itself as innovative, customer focused, and sustainable. If everyone begins using similar tools and prompts, this effect could become even more pronounced.

This makes specific stories, genuine proof points, a clear position, and language that reflects the individual company all the more important. Becoming more distinctive again is one of the major challenges where AI may not necessarily help us. Ultimately, it still comes down to people and their creativity.

Meltwater naturally allows us to see considerably more than we could without the platform. However, the greatest benefit for us is that we have actually become a little calmer.

In the past, a single critical article could sometimes cause considerable concern within the company. We would often respond somewhat erratically and on an ad hoc basis simply because someone happened to notice that particular article. Today, we can assess such coverage much more quickly, calmly, and precisely. Is it an isolated case, or can we identify a pattern? Do we genuinely need to anticipate a wave of public criticism? Fortunately, the honest answer is usually that it is an isolated case.

As a result, we respond less frequently, but with greater precision. To me, this is one of the most underestimated benefits of monitoring. It helps us decide when not to act.

As a family business, there is another important consideration for us. The company name is also the surname of the owning family. Reputation is therefore not something we assess on a quarterly basis. We need early indicators, not merely retrospective analysis. With its wide range of capabilities, Meltwater provides us with tremendous support. We do not have to identify everything ourselves, and we can make our assessment process both simpler and faster.

Christine Bossak leads the Group Internal & External Communication team at B. Braun SE, a global medical technology company. As part of the Group Communications function, she is responsible for global executive and employee communications, media relations, crisis communications, and communications for the CEO and Executive Board. Before joining B. Braun, Christine Bossak worked for international publicly listed companies in the energy and retail sectors, including as a spokesperson. Through these roles, she gained extensive insight into a wide range of communications requirements, industries, and cultural environments.

Conversation with Comms Leaders #2/9: Christine Bossak (B. Braun)

Andy Rowlands, who leads Accenture’s external corporate communications across EMEA, discusses the company’s return to European sports partnerships, the growing value of human talent and trusted voices in an AI-driven industry, and how Meltwater’s credible data and insights support effective communications planning.

My 2026 highlight has undoubtedly been seeing Accenture re-enter the world of sport in Europe across tennis, golf and football.

The announcements of our partnerships with the Women’s Tennis Association and golf governing body the R&A were amongst my highlights of 2026, and not just because I am a big sports fan!  The internal buzz has been just as exciting as the external one and the opportunities to engage with media, clients and partners in a different way has been exciting to see.

Add to those our new partnership with English football league team Salford City FC and our existing work with the NFL and we have a really exciting portfolio.  As we help each organisation reinvent how they engage with their players and fans, it'll create new opportunities to tell their stories for years to come.

In addition to this, working with our talented comms team across the globe is a constant highlight that it would be remiss of me not to mention!

We’ve all seen headlines about the potential for AI to replace entry level roles and many companies have reduced opportunities at that level as a result.

I think one of the ‘surprises’ over the next couple of years will be a talent shortage at the mid to junior levels of our profession as this reduced hiring moves through the experience ladder. Our communications profession thrives on new, fresh ideas and new, fresh talent is critical to that.

A second healthy surprise will be the comeback of entry level hiring. This generation has grown up using AI tools so will bring that skill into the workforce, but will probably need, instead, to be coached on boosting their human skills not their tech skills.

Indeed, the communicators who thrive will not be the most tech-fluent. They will be the ones with the deepest human networks, the sharpest instinct for narrative, and the credibility to say something others won't. In a world flooded with AI-generated content, a trusted human voice will become a scarce and premium asset. Scarcity, as any economist will tell you, drives value.

The pace and scale of what AI in comms can do is not slowing down. It will be able to do things that we can’t even imagine today. That prospect will energise some people and scare the life out of others. Our industry will include both types of people in the future.

There will be backlashes against AI, there will be evangelists preaching full AI adoption. Trust and responsibility will only grow in importance. Getting the right balance between what AI can do and what AI should do will be vital.

Meltwater is our eyes, ears and data goldmine.

AI tools can do wonders in terms of analysing and presenting data and insights, but they would be useless without the solid, credible information that we gain through Meltwater.

We are seeing new and more impactful ways of visualising our data through Meltwater which helps us to stay on top of emerging trends and plan ahead effectively.

Andy is an experienced corporate communications professional with a strong track record of leading country and international PR teams. Based in London, he currently leads external corporate communications across Europe, the Middle East & Africa for Accenture, the global professional services company.

Andy's expertise lies in strategic communications, media relations and reputation management across complex, multidisciplinary organizations. He has successfully led a wide range of strategically significant initiatives including the development of impactful thought leadership campaigns, executive profiling of board level executives and corporate rebranding. Prior to Accenture he worked at global engineering firm Arcadis and top PR firms including Burson-Marsteller where he specialized in technology, professional services and crisis related client work.

Andy holds an economics degree from the University of Bath. He has a strong passion for technology and its impact on society and ensures he stays up-to-date with the latest tech trends including AI. Andy has been recognized for his exceptional leadership skills, receiving several industry awards including Best In-House Media Relations Team, Best Use of Thought Leadership and Corporate Communications Professional of the Year.

In addition to his professional achievements, Andy is actively involved in his local community. He managed his son's football (soccer) team, Hemel Hempstead Town Youth FC, for over ten seasons and is a run director at his local parkrun.

Conversations with Comms Leaders #1/9: Andy Rowlands (Accenture)

Imagine a customer complaint starts on Reddit at 9 a.m. By lunch, it has been quoted on X and LinkedIn, picked up by a journalist, and shared internally by a client before your PR team has seen it.

Knowing how to track media mentions helps you catch that story while it’s still developing. The challenge is not simply the volume of online conversation, but finding the mentions that could affect your reputation, campaigns, competitors, or leadership team before they get buried.

This guide covers three ways to track media mentions, what to monitor beyond your brand name, and how to turn alerts and coverage into action. The right approach depends on how many channels you need to cover and how quickly your team needs to respond.

Why tracking media mentions matters for PR teams

How to turn media mentions into actionable insights

Start tracking every mention that matters

A story can change as it moves between news outlets and social platforms. For example, Wendy’s 2024 dynamic-pricing controversy began with comments from an investor call, but quickly became a wider story about “surge pricing.” By the time the company clarified its plans, customers and public figures were already criticizing the brand online.

The volume makes manual tracking unrealistic. To put the scale of online information into perspective, Google alone now handles more than 5 trillion searches a year, or roughly 13.7 billion a day. That's before counting everything happening across social platforms, forums, and broadcast that a search engine doesn't capture at all. 

Tracking mentions consistently helps PR teams act on four areas:

Reputation management. Catch negative sentiment while it's still just one story, not a pattern, so you can manage your brand's online reputation proactively rather than reactively.

Competitive intelligence. See where competitors are earning coverage, which topics they own, and what those gaps reveal through market research.

Earned media measurement. Track coverage volume, reach, sentiment, share of voice, and the effect on brand awareness instead of relying on a folder of press clippings.

Crisis detection. Spot a spike in mentions before it turns into a story your leadership team is asking about. That matters more given how much inaccurate news circulates on social platforms: most regular news consumers on major social networks say they at least sometimes see news that seems inaccurate, so a false or exaggerated mention can spread before you even know it exists.

The goal is to identify the conversations that could affect your brand and act while the story is still developing.

Most PR teams land on one of three approaches, and each one trades off cost against coverage.

Search your brand name across search engines, relevant social platforms, review sites, Quora, and priority publications. Include common misspellings, product names, executive names, any relevant hashtag, and campaign terms to catch mentions that do not use your exact company name.

This method is free and works for occasional checks or your brand with little coverage. But you only find what appears on the platforms you search, at the time you search them. It also cannot show whether mention volume is rising, sentiment is changing, or the same story is spreading across channels.

Google Alerts sends email alerts when new Google Search results match a term you choose. It’s free, quick to set up, and useful for tracking brand names, executives, competitors, and campaign keywords.

However, it only alerts you to content that appears in Google Search. That makes it useful for basic brand monitoring to help you track key brand mentions, but not a complete solution for social posts, broadcast coverage, podcasts, or time-sensitive issues. It also does not provide sentiment analysis, spike detection, reach estimates, or share-of-voice reporting.

Dedicated media monitoring tools monitor several media types continuously and bring the results into one dashboard. Depending on the platform, this can include online news, social media, forums, reviews, TV, radio, and podcasts.

They also add context that manual search and Google Alerts cannot provide, such as:

Alerts when mention volume changes unexpectedly

Competitor and share-of-voice comparisons

Dashboards and reports for campaigns or executives

Filters that remove irrelevant or duplicate results

Many also fold in social media listening, so you're not running separate tools for press coverage and social conversation.

Meltwater media intelligence is one example of this approach. It monitors more than 400,000 traditional media sources, 200 million online publications, social sources, over 20,000 podcasts, and broadcast content. Mira, Meltwater's AI assistant, can then summarize coverage, surface themes, and identify sentiment shifts, rather than leaving teams to interpret every mention individually.

LLM brand mentions and answers are another source to consider. Traditional searches and alerts may not show how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other large language models describe your brand. AI visibility tools such as GenAI Lens track those results separately and show the sources influencing them.

For teams managing more than a handful of mentions a week, this is the method that actually keeps pace with the volume.

Your brand name is the obvious term to watch, but it's not the only one. A complete monitoring strategy should also track:

Executive and spokesperson names, since reporters often quote leadership directly

Key products, campaigns, and press releases, especially around launches

Competitor brand names, to compare how your coverage stacks up

Crisis-related terms specific to your business and past incidents

Keeping this list current matters more than making it long. Review it every quarter and add or retire terms as your business, products, and competitive set change.

Tracking mentions only pays off when someone acts on what you find. A few habits make the difference:

Assess negative mentions quickly. Check the source, reach, sentiment, and rate of spread before deciding whether to respond, escalate, or continue monitoring. A rushed reply can sometimes draw more attention to a minor issue.

Amplify positive coverage. When a journalist, influencer, or customer shares positive user-generated content (UGC), send it to sales, feature it on your site, and use it as social proof in future pitches or to earn backlinks.

Feed data into share of voice reports. Individual mentions are useful, but the trend line is what actually informs strategy. Build media monitoring analysis reports that track your share of voice against competitors monthly, not just after a big campaign.

Use sentiment trends to inform messaging. If sentiment is drifting negative around a specific topic, that's a signal to adjust your messaging before it becomes a bigger problem, not after.

Treat tracking as the first step in a workflow, not the whole job. The earned media monitoring approach that works best pairs consistent tracking with a clear plan for what happens next.

Manual searches and Google Alerts may be enough when coverage is limited. As your brand appears across more news, social, broadcast, and podcast channels, checking each source by hand becomes slower and leaves larger gaps.

A dedicated PR monitoring platform closes that gap. Meltwater brings news, social, broadcast, and podcast mentions into one place, with real-time alerts and sentiment analysis so you know what's happening and how serious it is, not just that something happened.

Request a demo to see how Meltwater's media monitoring tools can help your team catch every mention that matters.

A media mention is any instance where news, social media, broadcast, podcasts, or other public content names your brand, product, executive, or campaign. It can be direct, like a news article naming your company, or indirect, like someone describing your product without naming the brand.

What's the difference between a media mention and a brand mention?

A media mention typically comes from a publisher or journalist, such as a news article or broadcast segment. A brand mention is broader and includes any reference to your brand anywhere online, including social posts, reviews, and forum comments, regardless of the source.

Yes, to a point. Manual search and Google Alerts are free and can work for brands with light, infrequent coverage. They miss most social conversation and broadcast mentions, and they don't offer sentiment analysis or the real-time coverage needed to catch a fast-moving story.

Untagged mentions, where someone talks about your brand without linking or tagging you, require monitoring beyond your official handles. A media monitoring tool that tracks keywords and phrases across news and social platforms will catch these mentions even when there's no direct tag, which is where most manual tracking methods fall short. Learn more about expanding your mention coverage beyond the obvious channels.

How to Track Media Mentions in 2026

The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) is an annual conference held in Shanghai that brings together governments, AI companies, research institutions and policymakers to showcase advances in artificial intelligence, explore emerging technologies and discuss the future of global AI governance. Since its launch in 2018, WAIC has grown in scale, combining a major technology exhibition with high-level policy discussions and academic exchange.

Key announcements from WAIC 2026 included

World AI Cooperation Organisation (WAICO) 

The 2026 edition carried added significance as a platform for international AI governance, marked by the founding of the World AI Cooperation Organisation (WAICO), a new intergovernmental AI cooperation body headquartered in Shanghai, established when 29 countries signed its charter on 16 July, a day ahead of the conference's opening keynote. The WAICO launch and Xi Jinping's keynote address were the two biggest drivers of conversation, as the conference generated 204K mentions and 1.74 million engagements, and 1.3B estimated views between 15 and 20 July.

The opening keynote generated the highest share of discussion, though the wider conversation extended to international AI policy, core technologies, robotics and commercial applications. The following breakdown outlines the themes, narratives and channels that shaped the event.

<table style="width:100%; border-collapse:collapse; font-family:Arial, sans-serif; font-size:14px;">
  <tbody>
    <tr style="background-color:#28BBBB;">
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold; width:30%; color:#FFFFFF;">Metric</td>
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold; color:#FFFFFF;">Value</td>
    </tr>
    <tr style="background-color:#FFFFFF;">
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold;">Mentions analyzed</td>
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0;">204,000</td>
    </tr>
    <tr style="background-color:#F0F4F4;">
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold;">Engagement</td>
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0;">1.74M</td>
    </tr>
    <tr style="background-color:#FFFFFF;">
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold;">Estimated reach</td>
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0;">1.3B</td>
    </tr>
    <tr style="background-color:#F0F4F4;">
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold;">Largest storyline</td>
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0;">Opening keynote</td>
    </tr>
    <tr style="background-color:#FFFFFF;">
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold;">Biggest policy announcement</td>
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0;">WAICO</td>
    </tr>
    <tr style="background-color:#F0F4F4;">
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold;">Dominant market</td>
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0;">China (94%)</td>
    </tr>
    <tr style="background-color:#FFFFFF;">
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0; font-weight:bold;">Main technology theme</td>
      <td style="padding:12px; border:1px solid #E1EFF0;">Core AI infrastructure</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

The keynote that defined the news cycle 

Policy narratives shaped discussion beyond the keynote

Technology and commercial applications dominated the conversation

A conversation concentrated on Chinese platforms

From insight to intelligence: how Meltwater Social Listening Platform helps

PR & Communications

Conversation with Comms Leaders #3/9: Julia Völzke (Rhenus Logistics)

Conversation with Comms Leaders #2/9: Christine Bossak (B. Braun)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #1/9: Andy Rowlands (Accenture)

How to Track Media Mentions in 2026

The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026: The Conversation Split Between Policy, Technology and AI

Understanding Social Media Listening Metrics for PR Success

What we learned about PR measurement at Meltwater Summit

Find the Right Journalists with a Media Contact Database

How to Find Journalists and Build Media Lists for PR Success

Social Media Sentiment Analysis for PR Teams: Use Cases and Tools (2026)

5 Takeaways from Meltwater Summit on Tour: Sydney 2026

8 Lessons on Crisis Comms from Meltwater Summit 2026

PR & Communications

Conversation with Comms Leaders #3/9: Julia Völzke (Rhenus Logistics)

Conversation with Comms Leaders #2/9: Christine Bossak (B. Braun)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #1/9: Andy Rowlands (Accenture)

How to Track Media Mentions in 2026

The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026: The Conversation Split Between Policy, Technology and AI

Understanding Social Media Listening Metrics for PR Success

What we learned about PR measurement at Meltwater Summit

Find the Right Journalists with a Media Contact Database

How to Find Journalists and Build Media Lists for PR Success

Social Media Sentiment Analysis for PR Teams: Use Cases and Tools (2026)

5 Takeaways from Meltwater Summit on Tour: Sydney 2026

8 Lessons on Crisis Comms from Meltwater Summit 2026

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