When machines are doing the shopping, what is the future of marketing (and sonic branding)?

What happens when your customer is a personalised AI agent/assistant rather than an

emotional human?

My toilet stopped working last week and decided to constantly gush water down the pan. I

lifted the lid and peered into the cistern trying to diagnose the problem. On a whim I took a

photo from above and uploaded it to GPT. In a flash it replied with:

1. A diagnosis of the issue

2. The exact branded part that needed replacing

3. Alternative OEM (cheaper) parts that would offer a direct replacement

4. An offer to order the OEM part for me direct from a local retailer

5. Step by step instructions on how to fit it

24 hours later, I had it all fixed. I was amazed and

delighted in equal measure. I had saved up to an hour

of internet and YouTube browsing and avoided

exposure to countless ads.

Consumer use of AI is going ballistic. ChatGPT is expected to soon pass 1bn weekly users – 20% of the world’s population with an internet connection.

As we all get familiar with the power of AI, the breadth of how we use it is rapidly evolving.

Google’s AI Overview feature means that almost 60% of internet searches terminate without

users clicking through to any other website (Bain & Company). Almost 50% of people

already use LLMs for news, weather and shopping recommendations. If your business

relies on SEO and/or pay per click advertising, the writing is on the wall – direct access to

consumers is going to be largely extinguished.

It's all about trust

The moment we trust AI to make the right decision for us in any given scenario, why would

be bother to crawl the web, do our own research, evaluate different brands and then find the

best price and make a purchase? If AI can do this as well, or better than us, why do we

need the Internet at all, except as a resource for our AI assistant?

Multiple studies have shown that 90%-95% of all purchase decisions are made using the

subconscious, System1 brain. A subconscious brain that has been soaked in brand

messaging and conditioning over many years. AI does not (yet) have a System1 brain and

uses a logical System2 approach to all decision making. It has no brand affinity and while it

will evaluate options based on consumer reviews and brand reputation it will never make a

System1 purchase decision.

The future

Looking forward it is clear that direct brand contact with consumers will no longer be

guaranteed, or even common. AI will prioritize efficiency, price and fit over storytelling or

experience.

Rather than SEO, brands will need to think like AI agents - providing product data that is

clean, comprehensive, and easily interpretable by algorithms. Purely emotional or creative

storytelling may no longer cut it.

The shift from persuasion to utility

In this new paradigm, traditional marketing levers of emotion, aspiration or celebrity

endorsement risk becoming background noise. The battleground is shifting from attention to

utility. The brands that win will be those whose products and services are not just desirable,

but discoverable, explainable, and justifiable to a logic-driven intermediary.

In some ways, it’s a return to first principles: is your product actually better? Does it do what

it claims? Are your specs clear, your reviews solid, your pricing competitive, and your

delivery reliable? If so, you stand a good chance of being selected by an AI assistant who

cares only about those parameters.

This doesn’t mean brand is dead. In fact, brand still matters, but not in the way it once did.

Your brand must now stand not just for emotional resonance with humans, but reputational

integrity with machines. That might mean structured data, verified claims, sustainability

ratings, and verified social proof, not just a polished video ad with a celebrity endorsement,

cute mascot or compelling narrative.

Why sonic branding still matters - even when AI is in charge

In a world where AI agents filter, summarise, and purchase on our behalf, static ads are the

first to be left behind. But not all brand signals vanish. Pre-roll video ads (those short clips

that play before premium content like movies, shows, or YouTube streaming) are far more

resilient. Why? Because they’re bundled with content the human still wants to watch. AI can

skip a banner, but it can’t easily bypass a video ad embedded in a YouTube clip or Netflix

trailer. These moments remain one of the last guaranteed exposures to brand

messaging—and crucially, to sonic branding. When your logo and strapline are rarely

experienced, your sonic brand may take on a new level of prominence and become one of

the few distinctive brand assets you can still rely on to build brand affinity and drive salience.

Conclusion

What happens when brands start marketing to machines? Will we see a new form of B2A

(Brand to Agent) marketing? Can storytelling evolve to influence not the heart, but the

algorithm? Will we optimise brand perception not for people, but for how we’re ranked by AI?

The brands that survive and thrive in the next decade will be those that adapt fastest to this

shift: from psychology to logic, from emotional hooks to verifiable value. It’s no longer

enough to win the hearts of your customers, you now need to win the minds of their

machines.

The famous Maya Angelou advertising quote:

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget

how you made them feel.”

Is about to be upended. Machines don’t care how your brand makes them feel. They only

care how it performs.