Marketing As We Know It Is About to Flip on It's Head!

Marketing has existed in one form or another since ancient times; however, marketing, as we know it, started in the mid-1800s as mass production and moving from regional to national reach capabilities emerged.  For the last 200 years or so, brands have tried to make an emotional connection with their target audience.  College courses like Consumer Behavior (which was one of my favorites) analyze the psychology behind decision-making, exploring social influences and emotional drivers behind purchases.  Similarly, Brand Management and Strategy focus on how to create a “brand promise” that connects on an emotional level, rather than focusing on features.  Now what if I said that the last century of teaching Marketing is about to change?

Welcome to the world of Agentic AI.  What is Agentics, you ask? Well, it’s AI-driven software agents that research, compare, negotiate, and execute purchases on behalf of consumers. Unlike our current chatbots, these agents act independently to meet your defined goals.  What does this mean? We’ll look at a scenario:

Let’s start before the internet, somewhere in the 1970’s:

Nike manufactures and markets top of the line running shoes.  Nike created a print ad, it is visual, it has language that resonates with runners.  This ad would run on TV and you would see it in a magazine. The consumer searching for running shoes, can see themselves in the ad and thinks favorably towards the brand and makes a buying decision. In fact, the “Consumer Decision Making Process” has been a marketing tool for decades.  We have all sorts of charts describing it.

Now let’s fast forward to today’s world.

The consumer is looking for a running shoe, and “Googles: Best running shoe”. What immediately follows is an overview followed by paid advertising. Nike is at the top of the search because they have paid to be there.

From there, the consumer will click on some of these, do some more research, perhaps go on Instagram or Facebook and see what people are saying and eventually make a decision. (yes I’m simplifying this to make a point, bear with me).

So now let’s talk about Agentics.  Last month I had the opportunity to attend a seminar.  All the big guys were there, Google, OpenAI, Meta… to name a few and what I walked away with was “Holy ^%$# !”  They estimated that within the next 2 years “Agents”, not consumers would be making a lot of the purchasing decisions.    These agents will simply be looking for an answer to a question or a statement.  A statement which consumers like ourselves will ask it.  “I need a good pair of running shoes, I run around my neighborhood.  I’m a size 7, I run 2 miles every 3 days, my budget is $150, have it shipped to my house”.  In this world, a couple of days later you will have those shoes delivered to your home.  The Agent, not you will make a decision based on the information you provided and what it finds online.  Let me repeat that “machines will be buying for us”.

In this world, what does that mean to marketing?  Well, trying to make that emotional connection is gone.  The agents don’t care about the visual or the copy that draws at your heartstrings.  They are simply looking for data, ie facts.  Some of the experts up on stage spoke about brands having two websites, one for traditional consumers and one for the agents which would be more html and would have facts, things that would answer potential questions.  Someone on stage spoke about that in the future consumers will only participate in the purchasing decision only about 20% of the time.  What this means in reality is that we really only care about 20% of the things we buy, I mean truly care.  The rest we would be okay with an agent purchasing.  Now keep in mind what’s important to me, might not be important to you and vice versa.  Also metrics that we use today to measure the effectiveness of marketing will no longer be as important as before.  Clickthrough Rate (CTR), Impressions, Reach, Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS), and many more which are critical today won’t be in the world of Agentics.  Similarly, SEO will have to evolve into AEO (answer engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization).

So is the future of Marketing doomed?  Absolutely not.  It will simply evolve, just like it has done for centuries.  Brand loyalty will shift from emotional preference to algorithmic trust. Meaning agents will value consistent product quality, verified reviews, transparent policies, reliable fulfillment and strong reputation signals. The next era of marketing won’t

be about shouting louder than the competition; it will be about being the most trusted, findable, and actionable choice in a world where machines increasingly decide. And, let’s not forget that not everyone will adapt all at once.  Sure, we’ll have early adopters that will embrace Agentics, but let’s not forget that a large portion of the population actually saw the Terminator and sees it coming!