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How Do You Advertise to an AI?

How Do You Advertise to an AI?

Robert Scoble & Irena Cronin
September 29, 2026

Thank you to our Sponsor: VITURE

For more than two decades, digital advertising has been built around one basic idea: get a human to pay attention.

That is why companies invest so heavily in search ads, social media campaigns, influencers, video, brand storytelling, sponsorships, and carefully designed product pages. The goal is to shape perception, create desire, and persuade someone to make a purchase.

AI agents could disrupt that model.

If people increasingly delegate shopping decisions to AI, the customer may no longer be the person viewing the advertisement.

The customer may be an algorithm.

That changes almost everything.

An AI agent may not care that a commercial is funny. It may not be impressed by a celebrity endorsement. It may not care that a package looks luxurious or that a brand has spent millions building an emotional identity.

It may simply ask:

Which product offers the best combination of price, reliability, features, delivery, returns, reputation, and fit for the user?

That raises a fascinating question for marketers:

How do you advertise to something that does not experience advertising the way a human does?

Advertising Was Built for Human Psychology

Traditional advertising works because people do not make purchasing decisions based only on objective information.

Emotion matters.

Familiarity matters.

Status matters.

Presentation matters.

A person might choose one pair of sneakers over another because of the athlete wearing them in an advertisement. Someone may choose a car because of how the brand makes them feel. A consumer may pay more for a product because the packaging, reputation, and story make it seem more desirable.

AI agents may process those signals very differently.

Brand recognition may matter less if the agent can directly compare measurable performance across dozens or hundreds of products.
Emotional storytelling may lose influence because an AI system does not experience aspiration, fear, nostalgia, or excitement in the same way humans do.
Celebrity endorsements may become less powerful if an agent prioritizes verified product quality over fame.
Visual packaging may matter less in the initial decision if the AI never sees a store shelf or product display in the way a person does.
Impulse purchases may decline if agents consistently compare alternatives before completing transactions.

Advertising has historically benefited from the imperfect way humans make decisions.

AI could make some purchasing decisions much more analytical.

That could force marketers to rethink what persuasion means.

Thank you to our Sponsor: Pokee AI

Product Data Could Become the New Advertising

Imagine asking an AI assistant:

“Find me the best dishwasher under $1,200.”

The agent could evaluate hundreds of models almost instantly.

It might compare energy consumption, repair history, warranty length, noise level, capacity, delivery time, return policies, customer reviews, professional testing, parts availability, and total cost of ownership.

The winning brand may not be the company with the most memorable commercial.

It may be the company with the cleanest, most complete, and most trustworthy data.

Accurate specifications could become a competitive advantage because agents need structured information to compare products.
Verified performance data could matter more than marketing language, especially when AI can cross-check claims against independent sources.
Availability and fulfillment could become part of advertising, because an agent may prioritize products that can actually arrive when needed.
Return policies and warranties could influence rankings, turning operational details into factors that directly affect product discovery.
Reputation signals could become machine-readable, allowing agents to assess reliability based on reviews, service records, certifications, and complaint history.

Companies may begin spending less time asking, “How do we make this product look exciting?”

They may spend more time asking:

“How do we make this product easy for an AI to trust?”

Thank you to our Sponsor: Omane Media

Search Engine Optimization Could Become Agent Optimization

The rise of search engines created an entire industry around SEO.

Companies learned how to structure websites so Google could understand them.

They researched keywords.

They improved page speed.

They created backlinks.

They optimized metadata.

AI agents could create the next version of that industry.

Call it agent optimization.

Instead of trying to appear at the top of a search page, companies may try to become the product an AI agent recommends.

Businesses may structure product information for AI consumption, making specifications easier for agents to interpret.
Companies may optimize for machine-readable trust signals, including verified reviews, certifications, pricing history, and service quality.
Brands may compete for inclusion in agent recommendation systems, just as they currently compete for search visibility.
Third-party rankings may become extremely valuable if AI systems rely on independent sources when comparing products.
Entire consulting industries could emerge around improving how products are represented to AI agents.

The best-performing marketing team of the future may include fewer people focused only on clicks and more people focused on data architecture, reputation, APIs, and AI discovery.

The marketing funnel itself could begin to change.

Thank you to our Sponsor: Partnerly

AI Could Break the Digital Advertising Funnel

Digital advertising depends heavily on moving people through a sequence.

Awareness.

Interest.

Consideration.

Purchase.

Companies use ads to influence people at each stage.

AI agents may compress that process.

A user could simply say:

“Find me the best laptop for video editing under $2,000.”

The agent could move from discovery to comparison to transaction in minutes.

The customer may never see the dozens of brands that were considered and rejected.

Awareness may become less important if an agent can discover products the consumer has never heard of.
Consideration could become automated because the AI performs comparisons behind the scenes.
Purchase decisions could happen faster because an agent can analyze far more information than a human shopper.
Retail websites may receive fewer exploratory visits because the agent gathers the relevant information directly.
Brands may lose opportunities to influence customers during browsing, because much of the shopping journey happens invisibly inside the AI system.

That could be a major problem for companies that rely heavily on awareness and repeated exposure.

A brand may spend millions making sure consumers recognize its name.

An AI agent may not care.

Thank you to our Sponsor: EezyCollab

Brands May Start Advertising Directly to AI Systems

Of course, advertising probably will not disappear.

It may simply change targets.

If AI agents become major purchasing intermediaries, businesses will have enormous incentives to influence their recommendations.

That raises uncomfortable possibilities.

Would companies pay AI platforms for better placement?

Would sponsored recommendations appear inside agent results?

Would brands offer special pricing specifically to agents?

Would advertisers try to shape the data sources AI systems rely on?

Probably.

AI platforms could introduce sponsored recommendations, creating a new advertising business model.
Brands could pay for preferred access to agent marketplaces, similar to sponsored search results today.
Retailers might offer agent-only discounts designed to make their products more attractive to automated shoppers.
Companies could compete to become preferred suppliers within AI ecosystems.
Regulators may eventually require disclosure when AI recommendations are influenced by advertising or commercial relationships.

That last issue could become especially important.

If your AI assistant is supposed to represent your interests, should it ever recommend a product because someone paid the AI company?

The answer could determine how much consumers trust agent-driven commerce.

The Customer May Never See the Ad

One of the strangest possibilities is that future advertisements may increasingly be invisible to humans.

Imagine two AI agents negotiating.

A shopping agent requests a hotel room.

A hotel system responds with available rooms, rates, upgrades, cancellation policies, loyalty benefits, and special offers.

The agent evaluates everything and books the best option.

No banner ad.

No video.

No influencer.

No human marketing interaction at all.

Yet the hotel still had to convince the agent that its offer was superior.

Offers could be delivered directly from one machine to another, bypassing traditional advertising channels.
Pricing could become personalized in real time, based on the customer's needs and the seller's available inventory.
Promotions could become structured data rather than visual campaigns, designed for machines to evaluate instantly.
Negotiation could replace persuasion, with buyer and seller agents exchanging offers automatically.
Advertising could become less visible while becoming more deeply embedded in commerce.

The ad may no longer be something you watch.

It may be a data packet your AI evaluates.

Branding Will Not Disappear Completely

There is an important counterargument.

People are still people.

Consumers will still care about taste, identity, culture, aesthetics, status, and personal preference.

An AI agent helping someone buy sneakers cannot simply choose the technically best pair if the user hates how they look.

The AI will need to understand emotional and cultural preferences too.

That means branding will not vanish.

It may simply operate differently.

Human preference will remain part of the equation, especially for fashion, entertainment, travel, food, luxury products, and other subjective categories.
Brand reputation may become an input for AI, because consumers can instruct agents to prefer or avoid certain companies.
Emotional attachment may still influence automated purchases, particularly when agents learn from a user's previous behavior.
AI may personalize branding rather than eliminate it, filtering the market according to the individual user's tastes.
Companies will still need human-facing brands, even if machines increasingly handle comparison and transactions.

The future may therefore produce two parallel marketing systems.

One speaks to people.

The other speaks to their agents.

Marketing Could Become More About Proof Than Persuasion

This may be the most important shift.

Traditional advertising often emphasizes persuasion.

Agent-driven commerce may place much greater emphasis on proof.

Can the company prove the product performs well?

Can it prove customers are satisfied?

Can it prove delivery is reliable?

Can it prove the warranty is strong?

Can it prove the price is competitive?

Verified evidence could become more valuable than marketing claims.
Operational performance could directly affect product visibility.
Companies with poor service may become easier for agents to identify and avoid.
Independent reviews and certifications could gain influence.
Trust could become one of the most important advertising metrics of all.

In that environment, marketing and operations start blending together.

A company's logistics performance becomes marketing.