Is Your Customer an AI Agent?Marketing in a World Where Agents, Not Humans, Choose
The Shift That's Already Happening
Right now, people are using a ChatGPT or Claude-type tool to research products in your category, and actually I am among them. They're asking questions in natural language (shout out to Wispr Flow), getting synthesized answers from across the web, and making purchase decisions without ever visiting your website. And you have no idea it's happening.
Say hello to your newest customer, the AI Agent! According to a February 2026 Harvard Business Review article, AI Is Upending Marketing on Two Fronts, conversational AI is displacing websites and traditional search as the way people learn about products, and it's doing it faster than most marketing teams are prepared to handle.
But here's where it gets really interesting: this isn't just about AI tools helping humans make decisions. AI agents are beginning to act as buyers, making purchasing decisions on behalf of humans. That means you potentially have two new segments in your audience that most marketers haven't even considered yet: AI agents as intermediaries, and AI agents as autonomous customers.
The Intermediary Shift: From SEO to Generative Engine Optimization
When someone uses ChatGPT or Claude or Perplexity to research your product, they're not following your carefully designed customer journey. They're asking questions in natural language, and the AI is synthesizing information from across the web including but not limited to your website, to provide answers.
This transition, from search engine optimization to generative engine optimization, favors brands whose information is structured, trusted, and easy for AI systems to synthesize. The opportunity here? If you get this right, you become the default recommendation for an entire category of queries. The drawback? If your information is scattered, contradictory, or hard to parse, you simply don't exist in these conversations. And unlike traditional SEO, where you could at least see your rankings drop, with generative AI, you might not even know you're being excluded.
The Autonomous Buyer Problem (or Opportunity)
Now we get to the really wild part. Morgan Stanley Research estimates that agentic shoppers could reach $190 billion to $385 billion in U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030, translating to a likely 10% share of online retail for agentic shoppers and an optimistic outlook up to 20%. We're talking about AI agents that don't just help humans decide; they make purchases independently based on parameters their users have set.
Imagine an AI agent that automatically reorders your household supplies, researches and switches service providers when it finds better deals, or books your business travel while optimizing for cost, convenience, and your preferences. These agents don't care about your brand story. They don't respond to emotional appeals. They're evaluating structured data and making rational decisions at scale.
Basic Shifts You Need to Have in Place Now
Structure your product information using schema markup that makes it machine-readable and consistent across all platforms
Create comprehensive FAQ content that directly answers common questions AI models are likely to encounter
Build relationships with authoritative sources that AI models tend to cite—industry publications, review sites, technical documentation platforms
Monitor how your brand appears when AI tools are asked about your product category, and use these insights to identify gaps
Ask your sales team if prospects are coming to them with AI-generated research reports to understand how this shift is already affecting your business
Real-World Success: What Companies Are Already Doing
Companies like L'Oréal, Unilever, Mars, and Beiersdorf have moved quickly to adopt protocols designed for AI agent visibility, signaling how seriously major brands are taking this transition. They're not waiting to see how this plays out, they're building infrastructure now.
L'Oréal's agentic AI tools are playing a role in how the company manages visibility and control across retail platforms, with brands like Redken and Kerastase now officially listed on Amazon and Sephora.com, while agentic AI automates content updates, monitors listing quality, and ensures consistency across regions; tasks that once required manual oversight but can now be executed in real time.
Adobe reports that traffic from generative AI platforms to US e-commerce sites surged 4,700% year-over-year in July 2025, highlighting the explosive growth brands must prepare for.
Meanwhile, specialized agencies have emerged to help companies with this transition. Agencies like Graphite now specialize in driving measurable visibility across both traditional and generative search, focusing on the intersection of SEO, content strategy, and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). They help brands gain presence not just on Google, but within emerging AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Your Next Steps
Be thoughtful and pragmatic as you incorporate this expansion and change to your audience. The reality is that humans are still making most purchase decisions, and they'll continue to do so for quite a while. As the marketing team, you need to stay on top of how that human consumer is finding their way to your product and/or solution, and be laying the groundwork for your newest customer the AI Agent, starting with the steps we cite in this article.
The brands that win here will be the ones that optimize for both audiences simultaneously, humans and the AI agents helping them. That means maintaining the emotional resonance and brand storytelling that connects with people, while also ensuring you have the structured, factual content that AI systems can reliably reference and recommend.
That's the future I'm building toward. What about you?
