AI is unavoidable in modern marketing. But it’s not just transforming traditional strategies to be more personalised and efficient – it’s playing a central role in changing the very landscape marketing operates in. From Search GPT to Perplexity, Tiktok to Instagram, the previous standard means of search are changing rapidly.
Much noise surrounds the AI boom, making it challenging for marketers to understand the change and what new developments make a difference to their business and impact their work.
As the customer discovery journey evolves, how do marketers need to rethink their strategies to survive and thrive in the AI revolution? What AI innovation really moves the needle on their KPIs?
The customer discovery shift
AI is reshaping how customers discover brands. Until recently, “googling” was the go-to action for discovering products or services, but times are changing. With the rise of AI-powered chatbots, overviews and voice search, traditional search engines are starting to lose grip of their dominance as primary brand discovery tools.
Consumers are enjoying and becoming more accustomed to conversational and personalised search experiences. Tools like OpenAI’s SearchGPT can offer more guidance and recommendations, and the ‘chat’ element makes it easier for consumers to get the specific answers and insights they want.
Social media also plays a big role in the way customers discover brands today. TikTok and Instagram especially are becoming central platforms for consumers to find product recommendations and research brands – you only need to look at the number of products that sell out after being discovered and going viral on social media.
These trends are only intensified when you scrutinize younger generations. A recent study found “to google” is slowly losing its status as a verb among younger generations who instead “search” on a plethora of channels. A recent study from GWI Core also found that 60% of Gen Z consumers say social media helps them get the information they want more quickly, while over half are using social media to look up brands.
A fragmenting search landscape
Marketers are faced with a fragmenting and complex search landscape. How their brands are discovered, and the points at which consumers convert are entirely shifting. So, what do they need to consider?
Social media has always been a core tool of a marketer’s arsenal, it’s becoming a far more critical channel that requires closer investment and management. Similarly, many marketers have been laser-focused and successful in managing a strong SEO and web presence, ensuring their brands rank highly among traditional search engines and priority publishers. This intense focus no longer serves marketers well as a strategy. Today, it is imperative to prioritise a diverse digital presence.
This is because search intent is evolving at all stages, and all channels have a role to play. While conversational AI and social media are rising in popularity, they are often used during the ‘explore’ phase of a customer journey when looking for recommendations and brands. Meanwhile traditional search engines remain popular at the ‘exploit’ phase, where customers know what they want and decide to take action.
Ultimately, brands need to appear consistently and authoritatively across a range of publishers, across all channels. Your digital presence is no longer about just two or three key sites and profiles, it’s far more wide reaching. But thankfully, AI is also part of the solution…
The next wave of AI: What does 2025 hold for evolving technology?
Leveraging AI for brand management
The use of machine learning and automation for personalisation and content performance analysis is relatively well-established in marketing. Still, modern solutions are going one step further in providing suggestions and recommending edits to improve a brand’s listing and content engagement. Algorithms are becoming far better at understanding a brand’s voice, evolving to changing behaviours, and creating content that is far more engaging with customers.
A less considered but increasingly important use of AI in marketing is helping to achieve that all-important consistent digital presence across all channels. More advanced marketers are using knowledge graph-based solutions to organise their data and maintain a brand’s information across a broad scope of publishers and channels in real time. Knowledge graphs are specifically designed to ‘talk’ to large language models (LLMs), meaning AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT can easily and effectively pull the information they need that is accurate and authoritative.
Finally, for multi-location brands, AI is helping marketers take a localised approach to social media. Managing different geographical regions can cause challenges around discoverability, understanding local trends and customer preferences. AI is speeding up this process, absorbing insights into geographical differences and making recommendations and updates to content in real-time.
Making marketing with AI work for you
AI has touched all industries in recent years, and it is non-negotiable for marketers too. Its dual impact on the customer journey and the tools marketers use to maximise impact need to be considered in conjunction. While it’s not possible to tell how the search space will continue to unfold and whether one channel will gain more dominance than others, it’s clear that the space is fragmenting as consumer behaviours diversify. The key to success will be ensuring your brand is showing up accurately and authoritatively, whichever digital touchpoint your customer uses to find your brand.
