Does AI make brand building more important, or less? Our 2027 Consumer trends report adds new evidence to the oldest argument in marketing.
We asked 4,000 shoppers in the US and the UK to walk us through a purchase they’d actually made. What came back doesn’t support the case the AEO industry is currently making.
When an AI assistant was involved, the brand the shopper had heard of but never got round to buying rose from 24% of purchases to 36%. Brands they had never heard of didn’t gain at all. And the overall share going to a brand they already knew was 73%, almost exactly the same as when no assistant was involved.
So AI isn’t finding people new brands. It’s converting ones they already knew about.
Read it one way and brand building has never mattered more. An assistant only converts awareness that already exists, so if a shopper can’t name you, being in the answer is worth very little.
Read it the other way and you spend years building awareness that an assistant spends seconds deciding whether to use, in a conversation you will never see.
So: is answer engine optimisation worth the money? Does the budget move toward brand building, or away from it? And what are you actually buying when you pay to appear in an answer?
Join our panel of marketing and insights leaders from across beauty, F&B and fashion as they argue it out. Bring a view.
Speakers to be announced. Stay tuned for more information.
