AI is turning marketing on its head on two fronts

Artificial intelligence is driving two overlapping changes that are reshaping marketing. First, conversational AI is displacing websites and traditional search as the way people learn about products, reducing traffic, limiting choice and forcing companies to rethink visibility when answers are generated rather than clicked. This transition – from search engine optimization to generative search engine optimization – favors brands whose information is structured, trustworthy and easy for AI systems to synthesize. Second, AI agents are beginning to act as buyers and make purchasing decisions on behalf of humans. As algorithms increasingly evaluate options and execute transactions, marketing must adapt to a world where the customer may be a machine with its own decision-making logic, requiring leaders to redesign content, infrastructure and strategy for both human and algorithmic audiences.