The revolution that AI unleashes in marketing is twofold (and turns everything upside down)

The impact of AI on marketing is mainly noticeable on two fronts: information retrieval and decision-making.

Since AI burst onto the marketing scene roughly three years ago like a bull in a china shop, the discipline has been severely shaken, and many principles that initially seemed unshakeable have been shattered.

AI has fundamentally altered the foundations of marketing, but its impact is most noticeable on two fronts: how consumers gather information and how they make decisions (where the decision-makers are not necessarily flesh-and-blood people).

For decades, marketing (at least in its digital form) paid homage to traditional search engines (particularly the all-powerful Google). And for brands, gaining traction on Google translated into traffic that was ultimately synonymous with conversion opportunities. However, this once seemingly sacred cycle is being desecrated by ubiquitous AI, argues Stefano Puntoni in an article for Harvard Business Review.

The Transition from Traditional SEO to GEO

After all, tools like ChatGPT and Gemini provide consumers with complete answers without requiring them to visit any website. The rise of AI-powered search reduces the number of clicks, diminishes the diversity of brands that reach consumers, and leads to a greater concentration of recommendations on a few key players.

The perfectly tangible impact of AI on traditional search has given rise to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), an evolution of traditional SEO where visibility is no longer anchored in keywords or backlinks, but rather in how AI interprets brand content, its ability to easily structure that content, and the perception of that content as reliable (which logically increases the likelihood of it being cited).

In the age of AI, brands no longer compete to rank highly in search results, but rather to directly access the answers. To survive and thrive in this new ecosystem governed by GEO, brands are compelled to urgently redesign their websites, whose design is currently tailored to human users, not AI agents.

Since AI thrives on structured data, frictionless access to information, and integrable systems, brand websites must be redesigned to incorporate elements such as product descriptions, dynamic pricing, and real-time product availability.

Marketing to Persuade AI (which, ultimately, makes decisions)

The transition from SEO to GEO is not, however, the only change AI is bringing to marketing. And the second change (directly related to decision-making) is, in fact, even more profound. Beyond simply providing consumers with information, AI makes decisions on their behalf, Puntoni emphasizes. ChatGPT and similar companies are now in a position to take the lead in the entire customer journey: searching, comparing, selecting, and ultimately purchasing products.

This new reality (in which the customer journey unfolds without direct human intervention) forces brands to distinguish between two figures: the consumer (who uses the product) and the customer (who makes the purchase decision). These two figures once converged in a single individual, but with AI, they have diverged, and brands are now obligated to influence both.

The fact that AI has become a target audience in its own right compels brands to rethink their marketing strategies, whose principles have thus far been heavily reliant on human psychology.

However, while consumer psychology follows more or less uniform (and to some extent predictable) patterns, the behavior exhibited by AI models is by no means consistent. In this sense, when faced with the same question, AI models don’t always give the same answer. And even the same question can sometimes result in different responses without changing the AI ​​model being questioned. Where the different AI models do seem to agree, however, is in prioritizing AI-generated content over human-generated content, and also in penalizing content that is transparently labeled as promotional (the traditional «sponsored content»).

What should brands do in the face of the AI ​​revolution in marketing?

In light of these far-reaching changes, brands must recognize that visibility, as it was understood until recently, is now a thing of the past. Clicks are no longer the coveted object of advertisers’ desire; instead, it’s AI-generated recommendations.

This redefinition of brand visibility is also accompanied by changes in how content is generated, which must serve a dual purpose: to persuade real people and to be simultaneously processed by machines.

Advertisers also cannot lose sight of the fact that their website infrastructure is becoming absolutely critical, and that these websites must be populated with structured and accessible data.

While the customer was once invariably a real person, that role is now increasingly being assumed by AI agents, which are, after all, perfectly capable of making decisions on behalf of people. And this is something brands must necessarily take into account in their marketing strategies.

Finally, brands must understand that emerging disciplines like GEO are by no means a panacea, as clear rules have not yet surfaced. Therefore, those who stand to gain the most in this area are those who experiment and learn faster than the rest, Puntoni concludes.

Source: www.marketingdirecto.com