Mass-market advertising relied on repeated interruptions to build memory. Search engines shifted discovery toward intent, making brands visible through SEM and SEO. AI chatbots now provide conversational recall rather than link lists, and many brands are reporting double-digit drops in click-through rates despite stable rankings. Half of American adults use major AI tools, accelerating the habit of asking personalized questions and receiving synthesized recommendations. Large language models surface brands based on frequency, positivity, and credibility of mentions across public text. Brands absent from AI training data or conversational signals risk invisibility in AI-driven recommendations.
When Google came along, SEM and SEO flipped the script, making the task less about interruption and more about intention. People were searching for products and services, and you wanted to be the brand they found in their search. Now AI is muscling in. While Google still handles 14 billion searches per day, some marketers are seeing a double-digit drop in traffic.
If your brand isn't in an AI model's memory, you don't exist. AI doesn't search AI chatbots like ChatGPT aren't hunting links. They're spotting patterns in billions of words, what shows up together, again and again. That's why Nike is associated with running, shoes, and Jordan. It's not search. It's recall. More like eavesdropping on a familiar conversation than ticking a checklist.
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