Why Brands Will Still Matter in an AI-First World

AI-powered search doesn’t just answer what people type — it answers what they mean. After more than 20 years in digital media, this represents the most disruptive shift I’ve seen in my career. 

AI search tools are now in a position to not simply direct audiences to your website. They can start a conversation with your audience about your content, without you.

Just as search engine optimization (SEO) had to evolve from simple keyword stuffing, brands now have to learn how to optimize content for AI. That’s not the only change affecting brands and marketing performance, however. 

AI is the new gatekeeper of trust. Recognizing that and adapting accordingly needs to be a top digital marketing priority in 2026. 

How AI search risks disintermediating brands

Here’s a hypothetical but realistic example of how AI search is changing the traditional trust dynamic online. 

Imagine a consumer who needs to purchase some essential household items, like paper towels. Rather than browsing online, they can simply ask a smart speaker to select paper towels on their behalf. 

An AI agent can respond by selecting the item and placing the order, informing the consumer that a delivery will be made the following day. 

Hopefully, the AI agent knows the consumer doesn’t like the cheap stuff, and it sends two-ply paper towels. Still, the entire transaction may not involve any discussion of any particular brand. Instead, the consumer may simply trust the AI agent to make the right decision.

That’s a little unsettling because bias and monetization (depending on the AI provider’s business model) could influence those AI decisions far too easily, even if it’s only a short-term win.

The same phenomenon is now occurring in AI search, where conversational prompts and questions directly lead to answers that summarize content scraped from brand websites. In some cases, the source is barely cited, and those searching may not bother to dig deeper. 

Do brands still matter amid this shift? The answer is yes, but only if they evolve.

Content is still king — but the audience has changed

The fundamentals haven’t changed: content creation is still the heart of digital publishing. But now, we’re not just writing for people — we’re writing for machines that will decide whether our content gets seen at all. It’s not only what we write, but how we write it. 

Structured content formats, such as Markdown, have been around for ages, but HTML was easier on the eyes for most humans. It gave us creative freedom to focus on the layout and visuals to accompany the content. Large language models (LLMs) aren’t so easily charmed. Designing a beautiful web page or arranging columns for images might soon be unnecessary. 

What matters is whether your content is easy for an AI search tool to understand and serve up as part of an answer. AI is now heavily relying on — and once again prioritizing — semantic content more than ever. Semantic markup is the new must-have…again. Unlike search engines, though, AI search tools don’t like to hunt. They like to be fed. 

Don’t wait for the playbook — help write it

There’s no official standard yet for how large language models consume content. No matter what you call it — Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), or AI Optimization (AIO) — these practices are still evolving. 

People are waiting for the AI companies to tell them what to do, but remember the early SEO days? No one handed us a rulebook for Google. We experimented and guessed. Some people got paid a lot of money for those guesses, and sometimes they even got it right!

If a huge chunk of the web — say, the 42% powered by WordPress — set a standard for content distribution, it would be in everyone’s best interest for LLMs to adopt it. That’s a massive opportunity for those willing to lead.

So, where does trust come from now?

Your brand name or logo might not always show up in an AI-generated answer, but if your expertise keeps surfacing in helpful, relevant ways, people will notice (and AIs will remember). The new challenge is making your content AI-friendly and AI-quotable:

• Structure your content for LLMs, not just search engines — realize there is a new gatekeeper.
• Summarize your value up front — don’t let the LLM summarize it for you; guide it.
• Use analytics to see what both bots and humans find useful — adapt quickly.
• Provide authoritative references — LLMs want to trust you as much as we want to trust them.
• Write in answer-first format — LLMs reward clarity and directness. Lead with the answer, then elaborate.
• Test with prompts — everyone has Googled themselves; ask an LLM what it knows.
• Optimize for zero-click exposure — treat LLMs like a new distribution channel, not just a referrer. This is understandably scary for brands, but it reflects a more convenient customer journey in certain scenarios. 

Final thought

The mission for enterprise marketers isn’t just about optimizing for machines; it’s about leveraging AI to better serve your audiences in ways we’ve only just begun to imagine. 

Content is still king, but the rules of the game are changing fast. If we want to stay relevant, we have to help shape the standards — not just follow them.