In the AI era, brands need to be recommended, not just found

As search’s lists of links give way to synthesised answers, Chris Johnson, Director of Demand at impact.com, explores why brands must build credibility, partnerships and third-party validation to move from being found to being recommended.

For 20 years, marketing revolved around one question for brands: how do we get found by customers? In the SEO era, the answers were relatively obvious. It was simply a case of ranking higher, owning search results and winning clicks to get in front of consumers before the competition did.

Today, this strategy is changing, thanks to a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour. Rather than scrolling endless pages of search results, audiences are turning to AI assistants for direct, synthesised answers to their questions. 

Brands are now having to change the question from ‘How will consumers find us?’ to ‘How will we be part of the answer?’. The ‘Answer Era’ is fully upon us, and discovery is moving away from a list of URLs to AI responses that create answers and present aggregated information, evidence and context from across the internet.  

As a result, the digital advertising space is experiencing a sea change in how brands are competing for consumer attention, as they move from wanting to be found to wanting to be recommended.

Audiences still have the final say

Historically, web search trusted the evaluation process to the consumer. If a person searched for ‘best kazoo on the market’, they’d receive hundreds of blue links to process and analyse before clicking. They could visit different sites, search for reviews and manually compare specs before pulling the trigger on their perfect kazoo.

AI has upended that dynamic. Rather than supplying a list of websites to analyse, generative search aggregates information from across the web and constructs a synthesised answer. 

Audiences still have the final say, of course, but the evaluation and discovery process has essentially been compressed before consumers reach a brand’s website. The commercial impact is huge, and because the click is no longer a reliable measure of discovery, brands now need to consider how they become part of the answers AI platforms serve up.

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AI reflects trust, it doesn’t create it

The distinction between credibility and visibility is suddenly very different, and very important. AI platforms don’t inherently know which brands are best at what; they infer that information from the evidence they find across the web. Depending on the platform, AI-generated answers can draw on anything from reviews and publisher coverage to comparison guides, community discussions and affiliate content, in an effort to provide relevant answers to search queries. 

In this way, AI isn’t actually creating trust, but finding where it already exists and reflecting it back at the consumer to help their decision-making. Furthermore, recent research into Generative Engine Optimisation has found that AI systems lean strongly towards credible sources of information in their answers, rather than simply relying on brands talking themselves up. 

And here’s the crux of the issue for brands, because the new challenge is not to simply increase their online presence, but to boost credibility density: increasing the quality, number and diversity of the trusted sources that can influence an AI’s answer. 

Credibility infrastructure built by partnerships 

The digital marketing industry finds itself in a place where a complete rethink about third-party marketing is required. If brands are to succeed in this space, they need to understand that their past activities have limitations that will hinder future performance in the ‘Answer Era’. A review here or isolated influencer campaign there will no longer cut it, and marketers still thinking in terms of reach, conversion and traffic could soon come unstuck. 

Instead, a brand needs to create a widely distributed tapestry of evidence that the brand is worth recommending to consumers. This should take the form of a network of content across trusted partnerships, publishers, creators, affiliates and positive discussions within relevant communities. 

Diversity is a key word here. Research into AI citation behaviour shows that different AI systems draw from wildly different sources. This emphasises the need for brands to create a broad, diverse footprint if they are to increase their chances of being recommended. 

This is where creators, affiliates, communities, premium publishers and other trusted partners can collectively form credibility infrastructure. Together, these are increasingly important distribution channels and independent voices that give consumers - and the AI systems influencing them - reasons to trust and ultimately invest in a brand. Historically, you could simply buy visibility, but now you must accumulate, build and engender credibility. 

A rethink of what success looks like

If the old success metrics are no longer as relevant, and if the traditional digital playbook of winning clicks through dominating search and share of voice is evolving, marketers need to rethink their aims.

Success is no longer about being visible; it’s about working out how to be part of the answer. Brands still need to understand how they appear online, but increasingly they need to focus on who is discussing, reviewing, recommending and validating them. 

Search advertising and owned media aren't going away, but their role in discovery is evolving fast. While visibility will get you found, it’s credibility that means an AI platform is likely to recommend a brand to consumers. And it’s that recommendation that will increase your chances of being chosen by consumers.