Fewer clicks
How often people click a regular result when Google shows an AI summary, compared with when it doesn't.
Pew Research Center, 2025 8% vs 15%AI and marketing
AI changes the tools. Not the truth.
AI is the biggest shift in marketing since search. It changes where buyers find you, who describes you to them, how fast the creative gets made and who buys your media. It does not change why people choose one brand over another. I spent the last few years leading marketing inside an AI software engineering company, putting AI to work across a global team. Here is what I learned about where it pays off, where it doesn't, and how I run it.
What changed
The front door moved.
For twenty five years, search was simple: ten blue links, a click, and your website did the selling. Now the machine answers first. For a growing share of buyers, the first description of your company they ever read is written by AI. It may be the only one they read.
No click at all
Share of Google searches that end without a click, up from 56% a year earlier.
Similarweb, 2025 69%A new front door
Monthly users of Google AI Mode, alongside hundreds of millions on ChatGPT every week.
Google, July 2026 1B+
Where AI adds value
Fast and cheap are free now. Good isn't.
AI made speed and volume easy for everyone. That is real value, and I use it every day. But when every competitor has the same tools, the tools stop being the advantage. The advantage goes back to the idea, the brief, the taste and the nerve to be different.
Hand it to the machine
The work that gets faster, cheaper and better at scale.
- Drafts, versions and adaptations: one idea in fifty sizes, ten audiences and several languages
- Testing more creative, faster, and learning sooner
- Research synthesis, competitive monitoring and market signals
- Custom sales decks and materials in minutes, not days
- Reporting, anomaly spotting and marketing mix modeling
Keep it human
The work that decides whether any of it matters.
- Positioning: the one thing you want to own
- The brief, the big idea and the final call on quality
- Taste: knowing when output is good enough, and when it isn't
- Trust, relationships and the story the CEO tells
- Judgment on what to test, what to cut and what to bet on
A machine with a weak brief produces weak work faster.
Creative and content
The work got faster. The bar didn't move.
AI didn't just change where people find you. It changed how the work gets made. Concepts, social posts, articles and web pages that took weeks now take days, sometimes hours. That is a real advantage, and it comes with a real risk: it is just as easy to make a lot of forgettable work, fast.
The creative process
More ideas, explored faster.
Faster: Rough concepts, mood boards, storyboards and copy routes in an afternoon, so we can test ideas before anyone falls in love with them.
Watch for: The first idea AI gives you is everyone's first idea. The job is to push past it.
Social
Always on, without burning out the team.
Faster: Post ideas, captions, video cutdowns and every size for every platform in minutes, so the brand shows up every day.
Watch for: Volume isn't voice. A feed full of generic posts teaches people to scroll past you.
Writing content
Drafts in minutes. Good still takes time.
Faster: Outlines, first drafts, summaries, and turning one strong piece into ten formats.
Watch for: AI writing tends to sound like everyone else's. Without a real point of view, real examples and a hard edit, it is noise with your logo on it.
Websites and landing pages
Design, build and test in days, not months.
Faster: Layouts, copy options and working pages you can put in front of people right away, then improve based on what they actually do.
Watch for: A faster page is only a better page if it says something clearer.
Use AI to get to the good idea faster, not to skip it.
Speed vs. judgment
Faster than ever. Wisdom matters more than ever.
AI can give you a thousand headlines, a hundred ad variations and a full campaign plan before lunch. What it can't tell you is which one is right. When everyone can produce more, faster, the scarce thing is no longer output. It's the judgment to know what's worth making, what's worth saying and what's worth betting the budget on.
That judgment comes from pattern recognition: having seen what works and what fails, across categories, cycles and channels. It's built over years, not prompts.
The idea
AI can generate a thousand options. It takes someone who has done this before to know which one will move people, and which will just fill the feed.
Pattern recognition
I have watched every new channel arrive: search, social, mobile, podcasts, streaming, and now AI. The hype cycle repeats. So do the winners: brands that know who they are and say it clearly, everywhere.
Wisdom
Knowing what not to do. Which test to skip, which shortcut quietly costs the brand, and when "good enough" isn't. That doesn't come from a model. It comes from experience.
Speed is a commodity now. Judgment isn't.
How I put AI to work
A smaller, sharper team, backed by agents.
Leading marketing at an AI engineering company meant we had to practice what the company sold. These are the moves I made, and the ones I bring to every team.
Write the brand code first
A machine-readable version of the brand: positioning, messaging, proof points, tone, and the words we never use. Load it into every AI tool and the output starts on brand instead of generic.
Build tools for sales
We built an AI-powered tool that lets the sales team generate custom decks and sales materials for each prospect in minutes, all on message and on brand.
Put intelligence on autopilot
Automated weekly competitor reviews, market signals and research summaries, so the team spends its time deciding, not gathering.
Let agents produce, people direct
Agents draft, adapt and distribute content. People set the standard, approve the work and take it where the machine can't go.
Review systems, not just deliverables
As agents handle execution, the manager's job shifts to designing and checking the system. A leaner team can out-produce a bigger traditional one.
Train the whole company
Positioning only works if sales and delivery can say it too. I ran company-wide training so everyone told the same AI story the same way.
GEO
Get named in the answer.
GEO, or generative engine optimization, is the work of getting your company named and described well in AI answers. It sounds technical. Mostly, it isn't. When researchers studied what gets brands named in AI answers, the strongest signal by far was how often the brand is mentioned across the web. Given two identical products, AI models recommend the one they already know.
The machine recommends what it already knows. The job is to make sure it knows you, for one clear thing.
- Write your one sentence. If you don't decide how you're described, the machine will.
- Ask the machines what they say about you, every month. It's free brand research.
- Publish proof worth quoting: original data, real numbers, named customers.
- Earn mentions where AI reads: press, podcasts, reviews, trade sites, forums.
- Say it the same way everywhere. Mixed signals produce a mixed answer.
- Keep the basics clean: fast pages, clear structure, accurate listings.
- Track share of AI answers next to awareness and branded search.
- Skip the tricks. When everyone uses the same trick, it stops working.
Earned media, second audience
Reputation, press and content. The machines read them too.
AI tools learn about you from what others write. Every review, article, podcast and honest forum answer is something the machines read, remember and repeat. The work that builds reputation now builds AI visibility at the same time.
Reputation and reviews
Buyers check, and so do the machines.
- Fresh, real client reviews
- G2, Clutch and Glassdoor
- Fast, human responses
- Directory and AI listings
Press and PR
Third-party proof a brand can't buy.
- Bylines and interviews
- Podcast placements
- Analyst relations
- Awards worth winning
Content
Original thinking people want to quote.
- Annual research and reports
- Plain answers to real buyer questions
- Quotable numbers and points of view
- A steady refresh cycle
Executive voice
People trust people before brands.
- CEO and expert posts
- Short expert video
- Speaking and events
- One story, told the same way
What doesn't change
Brand and demand are still one engine.
AI adds a new gear and a new set of instruments. It does not change what makes the engine run. Positioning still decides what you own. Great ads still win, and stand out more as the average gets more average. Earned media just picked up a second audience. And people still choose the brands they know, trust and talk about.
Now the machines are listening too. See how Performance Branding works, or read about the book.