At the 2026 Meltwater Summit, Christina Bennett, Head of Communications at Priceline, sat down with PRNEWS to talk about how the travel brand is rethinking PR ROI in an era where AI answers questions without ever sending users to your website.
Bennett, who works at one of the travel industry's earliest AI adopters—home to AI travel advisor Penny—sees generative engine optimization as a genuine opportunity for comms teams to prove their value with hard metrics. She's already benchmarking editorial citation share month-over-month and using LLMs to audit how Priceline is perceived in earned media. Her bonus tip: ask an AI to assess your PR strategy while stuck in traffic on the way back from the airport.
Watch the full interview to hear why Bennett believes the biggest GEO challenge isn't citations—it's what happens when LLMs stop using them altogether.
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.
Transcript:
Nicole Schuman: Hello, we're here with Christina Bennett, Head of Communications at Priceline. She's going to be on a panel about GEO, PR ROI, and brands measuring influence, so we're going to chat with her a little bit about that today. Traditional PR metrics were born in a click-based world—but now AI is answering questions for people without sending users anywhere. So how are you defining PR ROI at Priceline today?
Christina Bennett: It's a really interesting time because the travel industry is so historically a performance marketing engine. For comms in particular, I love this moment because it's really giving us a chance to shine and have real metrics behind what we do— especially as you're seeing the bulk of LLM citations coming from editorial, and in some cases owned media as well, which many comms professionals manage. The way I'm looking at it is it's still really early days, but I view it as a reputation engine. It's about looking at where do we want to be, how are we already being picked up and naturally crawled by the LLMs—asking the same questions consumers might ask about you and seeing what's coming up, what do we need to debunk, and how are we fixing that. In terms of hard metrics, we are working with a company called Profound. We're only a couple of months in, but we're going to start benchmarking editorial citation percentage month over month and looking at it with specific prompts tied to campaigns to see if we're moving the needle and growing the share that our team is driving directly.
Nicole Schuman: I love that "reputation engine" framing because I don't feel like enough companies are auditing where they are in AI search and what's coming up for them. I think everybody should be paying attention to that.
Christina Bennett: And you didn't ask this, but I recently did something interesting while I was stuck in traffic coming back from LaGuardia—I asked an LLM to assess my PR strategy. It's really revealing to see what it thinks you're doing and why, based on where you show up in earned media. It aligned with a lot of what we were doing, but there were some things I was genuinely surprised the LLMs perceived about us based on our coverage.
Nicole Schuman: That's a great tip—I haven't heard of people doing that. Apparently being stuck in traffic is the way to discover new things. Priceline is already somewhat experienced with AI—you have an AI travel advisor called Penny, and some generative AI tools on the site. Does that influence how you're thinking about being cited by external AI and how you're appearing in search?
Christina Bennett: It really does. One of my favorite things about the company is that we are a long-standing early adopter of new technology. I remember being in Silicon Valley in June 2023 announcing Penny at a Google event. We've since expanded partnerships with all of the major LLMs to power Penny, our consumer-facing chatbot, and we've also deployed a lot of different technologies internally for productivity, testing, and coding. My personal favorite use is creating executive briefing books, which everyone knows can be a real slog. It's definitely a big corporate priority. With Penny, we're using our own data to source deals the way consumers naturally would. In terms of how we're cited externally, I think there are really three things: how we're delivering our messages to consumers to help them find the right trip at the right price, how we want to show up in LLMs, and how we're articulating our AI thought leadership strategy as a public company in corporate comms.
Nicole Schuman: I'm going to have to try Penny for my next trip. Any tips?
Christina Bennett: Ask Penny to find you a deal. And my favorite hack is—if you already have an itinerary—put it in and ask Penny, "Am I missing any hidden gems?" She's sent me to places I never would have thought of going.
Nicole Schuman: So you've got tips not just for PR, but for travel planning too. Many comms leaders say it's hard to measure ROI with AI search efforts right now. What can Priceline actually track, and what are you still figuring out?
Christina Bennett: It's really early days for all of us. I'm lucky to work at a very AI-forward company, so we have many tools—and we're still experimenting. We're looking at editorial share of voice, and our performance marketing team is using it too. Right now we're doing a lot of test and learn, a lot of A/B testing. I couldn't give you the secret sauce. For me, it's primarily about whether we're showing up in the right places and using that to define who our new targets are—which high-authority outlets are surfacing in LLMs, because that changes our entire pitch strategy. Where you were once focused on clicks and headlines, now your comms strategy needs to be designed around synthesis and enabling LLMs to clearly articulate your brand, your campaign, whatever you're doing.
Nicole Schuman: I'm curious, what content from your website seems to be showing up most in LLMs?
Christina Bennett: A lot of it is about our deals proposition, because that's so much of who we are. And it's always interesting to see the FAQs around Penny. One of the most popular things that comes up is "Can I bring my pet?" So all the pandemic puppies are apparently going on trips now. People have such diverse interests—that's what we're seeing come through.
Nicole Schuman: Last question: what do you think is the GEO challenge that communicators in the industry are most underestimating?
Christina Bennett: I don't know if they're underestimating it, but the one that stresses me out is the move toward LLMs not using citations at all. That gets to the synthesis layer—your reputation and your content need to be strong enough and omnipresent enough that the LLMs include you regardless. It's not even just about being in high-authority outlets anymore. Your overall internet ecosystem presence needs to be authoritative enough that LLMs will include you in their responses and summaries.
Nicole Schuman: That's important for branding and reputation. We're so used to companies showing up in Google search, but if that's not happening in LLM citations, that's a little scary.
Christina Bennett: It is, and you're already starting to see some platforms use fewer and fewer citations. We'll see what happens—every day it changes. A year ago we wouldn't have had this conversation, and six months ago we were just tiptoeing into it. To me it's really fun. It's a challenge and a whole new workstream for our team, but it's genuinely interesting to learn about.
Nicole Schuman: Great. Thank you so much, Christina. Looking forward to checking out Penny!
Christina Bennett: Thank you.