6 Brand Musts for an AI World

WHAT HAPPENS TO BRANDS WHEN PERSONAL AI AGENTS SEEK THE BEST DEALS ON BEHALF OF THEIR CONSUMER OWNERS?

By Jim Sterne

Jim produces the Marketing Analytics Summit and is Board Chair Emeritus of the Digital Analytics Association. His twelfth book is Artificial Intelligence for Marketing.

Into a cocktail shaker, mix today’s focus on privacy, advances in machine learning and voice response systems, and consumers’ overwhelming desire for convenience. Shake vigorously. The result is an ecosystem of personally owned and controlled ai agents that predict needs, shop for solutions, negotiate terms, and place orders.

To the public, this is a refreshing beverage that eases their troubles and is the digital assistant they’ve been promised since star trek in the 1960’s. To marketers, this is a bitter concoction that instantly generates an excruciating headache.

What’s a brand manager to do?

1. Become and Remain Top of Mind

While mindshare has been the remit of every brand manager from the start, tomorrow things go beyond complex and sophisticated, and go straight to convoluted.

Today, if I ask Alexa for a package of AAA batteries, Amazon branded batteries appear at my door. If you have done your job well, I will ask for Duracell batteries by name.

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