We’ve all seen the hot takes on AI:
"Write faster."
"Generate more variants."
"Automate your workflows."
Sure, that's happening. But let’s zoom out.
The terrain has shifted. The tactics have no choice but to follow.
In the last few months alone:
- OpenAI confirmed it's exploring an ads model within ChatGPT
- Native Shopify integration is here, bringing “buy now” buttons directly into AI chat
- And OpenAI’s rumored social platform would prioritize interaction and visuals, not likes or followers
These aren’t minor updates. They signal a rewiring of how, and where, marketing shows up.
So instead of “10 AI prompts for your next campaign,” let’s talk strategy.
Here are 5 big shifts that might change how brands earn trust, show up, and grow in on this new playing field.
1. If You’re Not Useful, You’re Invisible
Search is becoming a conversation.
Consumers are asking ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity:
- “What’s the best CRM for a 5-person team?”
- “What’s a durable, pod-free coffee maker?”
- “How can I get more vitamin D without supplements?”
These used to be Google queries. Now they’re going to AI and that changes everything.
The new challenge: Does your brand show up in the answer?
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Future threat to ad visibility + discoverability:
Paid media has always thrived on being in the right place at the right time: SERPs, social feeds, marketplaces. But as AI becomes the new interface, answering user questions directly, traditional ad placements risk getting squeezed out.
If discovery happens entirely inside an AI interface, with no search, no click, and no ad, your perfectly optimied campaign never even enters the race.
Paid Implications:
- Ad platforms lose volume as user behavior shifts toward AI-first interfaces
- Brand demand generation must shift,showing up in answers, not just impressions
- Media strategy has to include AI ecosystems
💡 This is why we’re keeping tabs on tools like Seer’s GenAI Answer Tracking, HubSpot’s AI Search Grader, and SparkToro’s visibility framework. They’re not just cool tools, they are the next competitive differentiator.
2. The Funnel Might Collapse Into a Conversation
AI answers are becoming final decisions, not just advice.
ChatGPT isn’t just recommending products.
It’s becoming the storefront, the salesperson, and the checkout. All in one thread.
What We're Seeing:
- Shopify’s ChatGPT integration embeds “Buy Now” buttons directly into AI chats
- Klarna’s AI assistant already handles 2/3 of all customer service chats
- Google’s SGE is experimenting with native actions inside search
The traditional journey — ad → click → landing page → cart — is quickly becoming a single conversation.
📉 For performance marketers, this isn’t just about shortening the funnel.
It’s about reimagining what a funnel even looks like.
Paid Implications:
- Attribution gets messier… but journeys get cleaner
- Landing pages can be optional for some verticals
- Ad targeting strategies will shift from “drive to site” to “embed in the moment”
- Conversational commerce is blurring the line between paid and owned media
3. Your Brand Is an Experience, Not a Campaign
Remember when Wendy’s built a cult following by roasting people on Twitter?
Now imagine actually talking to that voice.
Thanks to ElevenLabs, delphi.ai and Runway Gen-3, brand personas can now become fully interactive: voiced, visualized, maybe even emotionally responsive.
Where It's Already Showing Up:
- Duolingo’s GPT-powered owl teaches and banters, not just quizzes
- Character.ai and Replika show that people form real emotional bonds with AI personas
- L’Oréal and H&M are testing AI-powered stylists that reflect their brand’s tone and identity
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Creative fatigue, engagement, and personalization evolve
Ad fatigue is real. And it’s getting harder to create content that stands out in a scroll.
But what if your ad didn’t just talk at someone, it talked with them?
We’re heading into an era where brand engagement becomes dialog. Where creative doesn’t just convert, it converses.
Paid Implications:
- Performance creative shifts from static assets to interactive experiences
- AI brand avatars could eventually field product questions, match users to SKUs, and deliver tutorials
- Campaigns may be replaced by ongoing brand conversations
💡 For performance marketers, that’s not just cool, it’s a media efficiency unlock. And for Paid Media leaders, it introduces a future where conversation design may become just as critical as conversion optimization
4. Strategy as a Stack, Not a Department
We’re not declaring this as fact, but we are asking some uncomfortable (and exciting) questions:
What if the strategist of the future isn’t a team… but a tech stack, led by one sharp operator?
We’re already seeing the early signs. Tools like GPT-4o, Claude 3, and Perplexity Pro are making it possible for a single person to:
- Generate campaign briefs from trends + performance data
- Draft messaging matrices
- Build and test creative variants
- Analyze results and iterate without ever opening a Google Doc
This doesn’t mean strategy is going away.
But it is shifting from hands-on execution to high-leverage orchestration.
💬 Paid POV: The best strategists won’t do everything. They’ll design systems that do it better, faster, and at scale.
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Execution is becoming programmatic. Judgment is where the real leverage remains.
With AI tools managing optimization, variant creation, and even audience refinement, the human role becomes less about clicking buttons… and more about making smart calls.
Paid Implications:
- AI co-pilots will handle optimization tasks faster than teams can Slack.
- Prompt stacks and automation frameworks will define output — not bandwidth
- The best campaigns might be built once and iterated endlessly by AI
Signals Worth Watching:
- Uncreative is already productizing creative with a subscription-based, AI-powered model
- Teams are building GPTs for creatives, targeting, QA, pacing — essentially onboarding AI as micro-specialists
- Perplexity Pro is acting like a real-time research analyst; one that never sleeps or misses a deadline
💡 As a Paid Media leader, I’m not trying to replace people. I’m asking: What if our best people could spend 80% of their time on judgment, not grunt work? And what would our output look like if the team we’re building included humans and machines by design?
“For Paid Media teams, the future may belong to those who can orchestrate across humans, machines, and the workflows that bind them.”
5. Memory Might Become the New Battleground
Imagine if platforms didn’t just guess your intent based on a few recent clicks.
They remembered you: your preferences, your habits, your needs — and tailored every interaction based on that deeper context.
That’s the future AI memory features are steering us toward.
The Datable recently published a great piece on this shift, exploring how memory-enabled AI could transform not just personalization, but the very fabric of search, marketing, and digital interaction. Platforms like OpenAI and Google are developing memory capabilities that can build persistent, editable profiles. Ones that evolve as users do.
In many ways, this feels like the next natural step from what ad platforms like Google Ads have long been pioneering:
Leveraging user signals to better match intent, not just keywords.
But while Smart Bidding and broad match strategies historically inferred intent session-by-session, memory features introduce a deeper, longer-term relationship; one that is transparent to users and adjustable over time.
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New questions arise for brands:
- If an AI assistant already “remembers” a user’s preferred brand, how do others earn consideration?
- If loyalty and preference are "baked in" over months or years of interaction, how do challenger brands break through?
- If users can edit or delete memories, how do you build value that feels worth remembering?
Paid Implications:
- Future marketing may shift from "right time, right place" to "right memory, right relationship"
- Standing out won’t just mean targeting better. It will mean earning a lasting place in a user's digital mindshare
- Trust, authenticity, and emotional resonance could become as measurable as impressions or clicks
💡 When memory shapes the market, the brands that matter will be the ones people want to remember.
So What Do We Do With All This?
You don’t need to pivot your whole org tomorrow.
But you should start asking:
- Where do we already show up in AI tools (and where don’t we)?
- Could our brand voice carry a conversation, not just a campaign?
- What parts of strategy are still artisan, and which are ready to scale?
And most importantly:
If the way people find and trust brands is changing, are we changing with it?
Let’s Rethink This Together
💬 Are you tracking your brand’s visibility in AI-generated answers?
💬 Have you tested an interactive brand persona — even just for fun?
💬 Seen other examples of teams blending human + AI strategy well?
Send me what you're seeing. I’m collecting examples and building toward a follow-up.
Want to chat Paid Media strategy in the AI-era? Let's talk.
