SEO used to be about visibility. Now it’s about credibility.
Discovery is shifting from keywords and rankings to AI-driven chat experiences.
The real advantage, however, isn’t training AI to recognize your brand in these experiences, but to recommend it.
That’s the shift.
The old funnel’s basically dead. Buyers aren’t clicking their way through journeys anymore. They’re discovering brands in places where clicking is optional or nonexistent: AI summaries, LLMs, LinkedIn feeds, and Reddit-style threads. That’s where the momentum starts: where people shape what’s trusted, repeated, and remembered.
Buyers spend more time talking to LLMs than to coworkers. (and that’s not an exaggeration).
Users ask AI everything from product recommendations to internal research questions. Whether marketers realize it or not, LLMs are already part of the buying process.
When a model becomes the first advisor a buyer consults, your biggest leverage is simple. Make sure the AI knows how to sell your product. If you don’t, someone else will train the narrative first.