Brands rely heavily on visual packaging, shelf presence and advertising to stand out. In an AI-driven world, that won’t be enough. The reality is that your next customer might not choose your brand — artificial intelligence (AI) might choose it for them.
As AI-powered agents become more prominent, they will reshape how brands compete for consumer attention. Today, a smart fridge reordering milk might rely on your purchase history. Soon, though, it will focus on the specific product attributes your household prefers — organic, local, sustainable — rather than just the brand name.
Such a scenario gives lesser-known brands a chance to compete if they offer the right attributes: The AI might recommend a brand that is more sustainable than the one you usually purchase, or a new local dairy. Currently, re-ordering is about convenience. Soon, it will also be about alignment with your values.
That means brands must rethink their value proposition for AI agents that will be making decisions on consumers’ behalf. There is a lot at stake: Research from Cognizant and Oxford Economics predicts that by 2030, AI-driven consumers could influence up to 55% of UK spending.
The new rules of brand relevance
User experience combined with AI is becoming the new consumer interface.
No longer driven by emotional storytelling alone, brand relevance will depend on attributes, experience, and the ability to integrate with AI-driven decision making. AI agents won’t just facilitate transactions; they will refine consumer preferences and introduce them to new brands.
As AI-driven agents replace traditional search and browsing, the customer journey will become more conversational. In web search, the visual impact of the brand is crucial. Not so much in conversational AI, where you can simply instruct your smart home agent to procure a product or service based on what you value, with the agent curating in the backend.
It becomes about matching your needs with a product that has the desired qualities, making the brand itself less important.
When buying a vehicle, you could have an agent to identify cars for you based on your preferences, another to find insurance, and another could inform you about potential earnings from renting your car out.
This theoretical army of agents could curate a comprehensive view of all aspects related to a vehicle purchase. They could even proactively manage your needs, knowing when your lease is up, how much you’ve driven, and what you’re paying for insurance.
Agent-based consumer AI will begin to drive market change over the next two years as tech giants embed AI into consumer platforms. The first wave has already begun, as consumers use AI to discover products and services.
Keeping your brand in the conversation
If AI is deciding for consumers, how will your brand stay in the conversation?
Make your brand agent-friendly. Optimise for AI discovery. AI agents prioritise relevance and attributes, not brand names or advertising. Implement rich, AI-readable metadata in product descriptions – for example, “organic, fair-trade, sugar-free” for food brands. Brands need to focus on structured product data, attributes, and performance metrics to ensure AI can recognise their products as high-quality matches.
Rely less on brand recognition. Consumers won’t always request brands by name, so AI will match them to products with the best attributes. Brands should identify their strongest attributes and own them in AI-driven marketplaces. For example, if you’re a coffee brand, don’t just market yourself as ‘premium’, position yourself as the best choice for ‘ethically sourced single-origin espresso.’
Make AI work for you. Train models on your brand’s strengths. AI agents recommend products based on patterns, reviews, and data, not traditional branding efforts. Brands must work to ensure that first-party data, customer reviews, and other user-generated content feed into AI models used by the major AI platforms.
Prioritise building direct consumer-AI relationships. As conversational commerce evolves, brands must integrate into AI-driven interfaces like chatbots, voice assistants, and recommendation engines. Companies should develop a branded AI experience that allows consumers to interact directly with the brand’s agent.
Build AI-proof loyalty. Continuing to focus on post-purchase engagement is key. AI may influence purchase decisions, but human experience drives repeat business. To remain top-of-mind, brands should strengthen customer loyalty programs, personalised post-purchase engagement, and direct AI-powered communication channels.
Ultimately, the brands that will stay in the conversation and lead it will be those that embrace AI and focus on the attributes that matter to consumers.