For thousands of years, marketing has focused on people. But through my work with AI agents and tools like GPT Operator, I see a rapid shift in how people discover and buy products. Increasingly, they’re no longer making decisions themselves—AI agents are doing the work for them. How do you adapt to that? That’s what I explore in this article.

From travel planners to shopping assistants, AI models like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Meta’s Llama are becoming the intermediaries between consumers and brands. But does this work the way companies hope? Will AI agents really determine which brands consumers choose? Or are companies risking invisibility by blindly optimizing for AI?

AI Will Soon Fill Your Shopping Cart—But Based on What?

According to a Boston Consulting Group study, 28% of consumers already use AI to help choose products like cosmetics. But does that mean AI agents will eventually make all purchase decisions? I think that’s still very much up in the air.

Just look at Google’s featured snippets. For years, I optimized my companies’ SEO strategies to appear at the top of search results. But now that AIs like Gemini and ChatGPT generate their own answers, it’s unclear whether consumers will even click through to websites at all.

The same could happen with AI agents. Businesses might invest huge amounts of time and resources into AI-agent-friendly branding, only to discover that the AI ends up recommending a competitor’s product for unclear reasons.

Another issue is how influenceable AI agents really are. Google, OpenAI, and Meta keep their recommendation algorithms largely secret. I had hoped regulators—especially in the EU—would enforce more transparency, but that hasn’t happened yet. And even if companies figure out which factors count, AI developers can change the rules at any time. We’ve seen this with Google’s ever-changing search algorithm.

One more risk I foresee: AI agents may not recommend the best products, but the ones for which they receive the most data—or financial incentives. Just like search engines and social media can be manipulated through ads and SEO, AI agents could be biased too. That means companies aren’t just competing with each other—they’re competing with the opaque decision-making of the AI itself.

Smart AI, Dumb Choices: How Brands Struggle With AI Recommendations

Here are a few recent examples I came across that highlight how things can go very right—or very wrong.

Ballantine’s Whisky, a product meant for a broad audience, was misclassified by AI agents like Meta’s Llama as a premium product. Why? Because there was a lot of online content about its luxury editions. To correct this perception, Ballantine’s changed its ads and content strategy to emphasize the accessibility of its standard whisky. But it’s still unclear whether the AI actually updated its view.

Klarna launched an AI customer service assistant based on OpenAI technology in early 2024. Within the first month, it handled the workload of 700 full-time employees, drastically reducing customer service costs.

Initially, customers were just as satisfied with the AI as with human agents. But when Klarna expanded the AI to offer product comparisons and recommendations, problems began. The AI gave conflicting advice or favored certain brands based on unclear criteria.

Booking.com and Expedia are experimenting with AI-driven search results, where AI agents suggest options based on preferences and past bookings. Hotels and travel providers are no longer just competing on price and quality—but also on how well their offers get picked up by AI models. This forces businesses to tailor their marketing to criteria used by AI agents, without knowing exactly what those criteria are.

How to Make AI Work For You—Not Against You

AI agents are increasingly deciding what consumers see. That requires a whole new way of thinking. Traditional marketing techniques still matter, in my view, but they must be expanded with strategies tailored to how AI agents process and recommend information.

Maintain a consistent and credible digital presence. AI models rely on everything available about your brand. If conflicting information is online, it can lead to confused—or even negative—AI interpretations of your brand.

Understand how AIs perceive your brand and shape that image proactively. Use tools like Share of Model to analyze how AI agents view your brand. Make sure AI has access to trustworthy sources like articles from respected platforms.

Structure your content for AI crawlers. Just as SEO is important for search engines, structuring content is crucial for AI agents. Use schema.org markup, clear metadata, and fast loading speeds to make your content easier for AI to interpret.

Experiment with prompt influence and online conversations. Research from Carnegie Mellon shows that small changes in how questions are phrased can significantly impact AI recommendations. Test prompts strategically and steer conversations on platforms like Reddit and Quora.

The rise of AI agents is changing how consumers make decisions—but that doesn’t mean companies should blindly chase algorithms. AIs are volatile, evolving, and easily influenced—and often not in favor of the businesses they serve.

Companies that focus solely on AI optimization without a broader strategy risk becoming invisible if AI changes the rules. And those rules are shifting faster than most companies can adapt.

What does matter is a hybrid strategy: stay attractive to AI agents, but don’t lose sight of human connection. People still form emotional bonds with brands—bonds no AI can replicate. The best path forward is to use AI smartly, without losing control of your story.