The fear of brand invisibility
AI and clickless search reduce brand control and return the product to the central role in marketing.
Clickless search, language models, and AI-powered buying agents are eroding brands’ control over their narrative. But far from being a definitive threat, this new scenario presents a historic opportunity by returning to competition based on the product itself.
For decades, marketing was able to inflate the perceived value of products far above their actual value. Cars that promised freedom, coffee makers that sold happiness, or lingerie that evoked unrealistic aspirations. Advertising creativity functioned as an amplifier of promises. However, that era has been crumbling for some time.
Clickless Search and the End of Controlled Narrative
So-called clickless search is radically changing how consumers access information. Instead of lists of links, language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity offer direct, synthesized, and contextualized answers. From a marketing perspective, this represents a loss, given that the brand no longer controls the environment, the message, or the order of the information.
LLMs provide second-hand comparisons of products, prices, ratings, and alternatives. Exaggerated promises are easily decoded. The «fairy dust» of marketing fades in the face of radical transparency driven by technology.
The next blow: AI agents that buy for us
Adding to this scenario is the arrival of AI agents, systems capable of making purchasing decisions on behalf of consumers. Although their use is not yet widespread, their adoption is progressing rapidly. Platforms like Amazon and Otto, as well as technology players like OpenAI and Perplexity, are already developing AI-based shopping assistants. According to the ECC Club 2025 study, 61% of consumers envision themselves delegating the selection and purchase of products to these types of agents in the future.
These systems will gather information from multiple sources (reviews, forums, social media, news, and only partially from official brand communications), resulting in much more realistic and difficult-to-control evaluations. Consequently, corporate websites will lose their traditional function as emotional showcases: design and presentation will take a backseat to the need to be technically accessible and understandable for bots.
The most significant effect of this transformation is the return of product policy as the central focus of marketing. In an environment where information is democratized and promises are verified in real time, differentiation is no longer achieved through advertising pressure, but through substance. Brands like Apple, Patagonia, and Dyson demonstrate that innovation, quality, sustainability, and real customer benefit can be more decisive than investment in traditional advertising.
Source: www.marketingdigital.com
