There’s a particular headline that’s making  PR people sit up a little straighter in their chairs: Gartner Says PR Budgets Will Double by 2027. So pop the champagne! Share the LinkedIn posts. Let’s add a fresh slide titled “The Vindication Slide” in new-business decks! The reason? According to the Gartner-backed prediction covered by Inc., earned media budgets are set to double by 2027, on the theory that AI is replacing traditional search as the primary way people discover brands and that AI leans heavily on earned media rather than paid media. The logic, on paper, is elegant: Google traffic is declining while ChatGPT traffic more than doubled year-over-year in 2024, with weekly active…