Why just being remembered won’t save you in an AI-driven world
– How AI is Changing Advertising Strategy
Marketers love to split the AI conversation in two at the moment: 1. How it’ll make our jobs easier or 2. How it’ll make our jobs obsolete. But there’s a third and arguably more urgent angle we should be talking about, because AI is going to change advertising strategy:
What is going to happen when your buyer shifts from human to an agent? It genuinely challenges the traditional marketing model we have been working with since the beginning of time.
Because it will come. Maybe not for 100% of the market, but for a large portion of it. Especially for low involvement and grudge purchase categories.
AI is about to start shopping for us. In fact, it already can. Call it agentic shopping. But it isn’t long until one day AI agents will be making purchase decisions for a large majority of consumers. Think Siri’s grown-up sibling or the AI inside your next smart fridge.
They’ll buy your running shoes, pick your skincare, top up your pantry. Not just recommending, (which is what is happening now) actually transacting. And here’s the shift that should make brand marketers sit up, because I sure am.
Why change advertising strategy? Because AI agents won’t shop like consumers do.
They don’t browse. They don’t impulse buy. They don’t pay more just because they “love” a brand [I just cried a little inside too].
They optimise, they trawl structured data, crawl product reviews, compare specs, search Reddit threads, and strip every ounce of irrational thought out of the process. If it can’t be ranked, verified, or reviewed it’s potentially going to be ignored.
In the future, being distinctive isn’t going to be enough to cut it.
For the past decade, marketers have been taught to chase distinctiveness. Be easy to spot. Build memory structures. Become mentally available so when the consumer comes into category they are thinking of you first. This is what we talk about every day with our clients.
Yeah, all this stuff still matters…to humans. It is still going to matter to a degree, because as humans we still have somewhat control over the third-party content that gets published online.
But if AI is working off data, presence and access and your brand isn’t being talked about in forums, reviewed online, linked in a blog post, or benchmarked in someone’s top five list it simply doesn’t and won’t show up. Not because you’re not good. Because the right information isn’t crawlable.
This isn’t just an evolution of media buying. It’s going to require a transformation of advertising strategy driven by AI-powered decision-making.
And it is already happening, we’re seeing it in categories like travel, insurance, electronics all sectors with high complexity and low consumer engagement.
Ask Gemini or GPT to recommend a travel insurer or an affordable SPF Moisturiser and you’ll see it happen in real time just like I did today.
The default answers are based on who’s been mentioned the most, reviewed the best, or described in a way that’s easy for the machine to parse. If I was rich in time and money, I would be investing in community curated social brands like Reddit for Business and review sites like beautyheaven and CHOICE right now.
So, brands with no dialogue, content or reputation? They will be at risk. Brands with awesome social content, a fanbase and product claims? They will win.
Here’s how we are starting to frame and consider it at Audience Group. A strategic checkpoint for brand teams thinking about life beyond the funnel:
Mental availability got you in the human’s head. Conversational availability will get you into the agent’s shortlist.
This will be the new battleground if it isn’t already.
Not just: “Do people remember us?” But: “Are we being talked about, have a strong social presence, ranked, linked, and structured in a way an agent can use?” – It’s essentially earned media.
It’s no longer enough to be top of mind. You have to be top of dataset. What does your longer-term content and social strategies look like? You are going to need reasons for people to mention you. In reviews. On Reddit. On TikTok. Do you have a claim? Not a tagline but a claim, a ranking cue: “Best for sensitive skin.” “Longest battery life.” “Most recycled packaging.” A machine needs a rationale. If you don’t have one, figure it out and give it one. Better yet if you can, give it five.
So what should you be doing now?
Obviously we still have time on our side, this isn’t quite in the mainstream yet. But considering this future now, will only help to future proof your brand. Whilst AI Agents aren’t yet doing the purchasing for us, they are helping more and more people make easy purchase choices. Don’t go abandoning creativity. Or media. Or brand codes. But do accept the rules are changing.
Attention still matters. Brand still matters and experience still matters because it’s these things driving the human generated content that the AI is building it’s analysis from. If you’re not proactively planning around how your brand will be seen, talked about, and selectable you could be out.
Advertisers who start rethinking their advertising strategy in light of AI before agentic buying goes mainstream, will have a critical advantage.
