Future Trends in AI-Driven Marketing

There's a quiet revolution happening in the world of content and discovery, and we're barely talking about it. 🚨 SEO as we've known it is quickly becoming obsolete. AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, and Claude are reshaping how buyers research, especially in high-involvement e-commerce sectors like consumer tech. Andrej Karpathy recently highlighted this perfectly: "It’s 2025 and most content is still written for humans instead of LLMs. 99.9% of attention is about to be LLM attention, not human attention." Imagine a buyer exploring a high-value product—say a premium smartwatch or a flagship smartphone. Rather than sifting through dozens of links, they're now simply asking: "Which smartwatch is better for health tracking: Fitbit Sense or Apple Watch Ultra?" This isn't hypothetical; it's happening right now. AI assistants are increasingly trusted as expert advisors that simplify complex product comparisons. For brands, this changes everything: ✅ Traditional SEO and "ranking #1 on Google" is no longer enough. ✅ AI agents handle the discovery process, dramatically shortening the consumer journey. ✅ Businesses must now optimize their content not only for human eyes but also for AI interpretation. (As Erik Wikander put it beautifully) A few eye-opening shifts already happening: 📉 Review platforms like G2 and StackOverflow have lost significant traffic post-ChatGPT. (Elena Verna) 📉 Big players like HubSpot, Figma, and Canva are seeing declining organic traffic as AI directly answers user queries. (Oliver Molander) 📉StackAI now receives more inbound from ChatGPT & Perplexity than from Google (Antoni Rosinol) The implications for Ecommerce and consumer tech brands are massive: Your product content must become "AI-native," meaning it's structured clearly enough for AI tools to pull and recommend. Content needs precise differentiation and expert-level detail because the AI gatekeepers are getting smarter at recognizing genuine value vs. fluff. As Tomasz Tunguz has highlighted, expect the emergence of AIO (AI Optimization)—the next evolution of content strategy where you're optimizing not just for search engines but for a multitude of personalized AI assistants serving diverse ICPs. In short, the future belongs to those who understand how to capture the attention of AI agents first, and users second. Traditional SEO is fading. We're entering a world where personal AI agents will act as gatekeepers, curating hyper-relevant content tailored exactly to individual needs and preferences. This demands a radical reimagining of CX tech stacks, particularly around product discovery, comparison, and commerce journeys. At Swirl®, we're addressing precisely this challenge by building specialized AI Agents—transforming customer experience into dynamic, personalized, and AI-optimized experiences. If your brand is navigating this shift and looking for ways to stay ahead, let's talk. #artificialintelligence #Ecommerce #AIO #SEO

Marketing in 2025 is not what you expect. AI and communities are rewriting every rule. The old funnel? It’s fading fast. I see brands using AI to automate, analyze, and predict. Tasks that took days now take seconds. But that’s not the real story. The real shift? People trust people, not ads. Communities drive the conversation. Gen Z is moving from search engines and public feeds to private, AI-powered spaces. Here’s what I’m seeing every day: → AI tools build smarter, faster campaigns → Community feedback shapes product and brand → User-generated content outperforms polished ads → Trust comes from voices, not logos I’ve spent 15+ years in growth marketing. I’ve seen trends come and go. But this is different. AI is not here to steal jobs-it’s here to help you grow. It gives you space to focus on what matters: Strategy. Storytelling. Real connection. If you’re still chasing traffic with old-school SEO and social hacks, you’re playing catch-up. Gartner predicts a 25% drop in search engine volume by 2026. Half of Gen Z will leave traditional social for AI-curated communities. Adapt or get left behind. Here’s how I’m staying ahead: - I use AI for insights, not shortcuts - I build campaigns around community, not clicks - I test, learn, and listen (yes, even to my basset hound 🐶) The future of marketing is personal, fast, and driven by trust. How are you shifting your strategy for 2025? What’s one thing you’re doing to keep up with AI and community-led change? Let’s connect-there’s a lot to learn, and even more to build. 🚀

Let your competitors use AI as spam cannon 3.0 with "personalization." They will get a few meetings. But the winning AI-driven marketing playbook is not going to be a volume game. The future = more value + more targeted. AI can help on both sides of this equation... 1.) More Value 🤩 AI-generated "ultimate guides" to drive MQLs won't do the job. The marginal value of each thing is going down, so the only things worth our time are highly valuable. There's an opportunity to increase the depth, quality and relevance of content, experiences, and offers. Since features will be a commodity, it will be about: — Tailored messaging and offers. — Brand and community moats. — Creating insights from your unique data. — Packaging all of this in ways that meet buyers where they are. It's the only way to stand out when anyone can vibe code your latest feature and 10x content volume. 2.) More Targeted 🎯 Spray and pray is getting even more costly as customer expectations increase. The bar for relevance is higher than ever. There's an opportunity to go beyond basic firmographics to third gen targeting. AI Agents can define value-based ICPs and segments: — Answer any question for every account. — The depth of human research, but scalable to millions of answers. — "Vibe signals" replace generic data. You don't have to keep wasting 20-30% of sales and marketing budgets on accounts that will never buy. AI enables strategic targeting and segmentation. This is not new. It's a return to fundamentals. But AI is going to give us more leverage in value creation and more precision in targeting. The B2B marketers who win in the AI era won't be volume players. They'll be value players. The rest will drown in AI-generated mediocrity.

I built my first Agentic Commerce startup before LLMs existed at scale.  I’ve been tracking the agentic commerce & payments space closely now and there's some interesting stuff happening right now. The big players are going in different directions. Shopify is doubling down on their Sidekick AI for merchant automation. Amazon is quietly building out their fulfillment agents behind the scenes. And then you have newer companies focusing specifically on customer service automation for e-commerce. But here's what I'm seeing as the real trend: it's not just about chatbots anymore. The companies that are winning are building agents that can actually take actions - process returns, update inventory, coordinate with suppliers, even make purchasing decisions within set parameters. The most interesting work is happening in the mid-market space. Small businesses can't afford custom solutions, and enterprise has their own teams. But mid-market retailers are perfect for these agentic commerce tools. I'm seeing three main categories emerging: 1) Customer service agents that can actually resolve issues (not just answer questions) 2) Inventory management agents that predict and auto-reorder stock 3) Marketing agents that can adjust campaigns based on real-time performance data Here are some other patterns I’m seeing that are using AI across entire customer journey: Product Discovery: AI agents are now scanning millions of product reviews, social mentions, and search trends to predict what customers want before they know it themselves. Dynamic Pricing: Gone are the days of static price tags. AI is analyzing competitor pricing, inventory levels, demand patterns, and customer behavior in real-time. e-commerce sites are updating prices thousands of times per day. Fraud Detection: Traditional rule-based systems caught maybe 50-60% of fraudulent transactions. Modern AI systems are hitting 85%+ accuracy while reducing false positives that frustrate legitimate customers. Payment Optimization: AI is figuring out which payment method to suggest to each customer, when to retry failed payments, and how to route transactions for the lowest fees and highest success rates. Customer Support: Payment issues used to require human agents. Now AI can resolve 80% of payment disputes, refund requests, and billing questions without human intervention. The companies moving fast on this are seeing dramatic improvements in conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and operational efficiency. The ones waiting will be falling behind quickly.

GenZ trusts AI influencers more than humans. That's just the beginning of how AI will rewrite the entire commercial playbook in 2025. 6 trends to watch: 1️⃣ A Brave New SEO World SEO did not die as everyone expected. LLMs with search capabilities are still using things like backlinks and ranking to choose what information to surface. BUT, companies will also have to optimize content for LLM ingestion. Because LLMs don’t use keyword density to determine relevance and instead use high-dimensional semantic representation. To deal with this, Kieran Flanagan, SVP of Marketing at HubSpot, advises: “AI will cannibalize informational content. Keep your organic traffic with unique, research-based content“. 2️⃣ AI bots as brand ambassadors and influencers 46% of GenZers would be more interested in a brand if they used AI influencers (SproutSocial). This trend already started in 2024 (even Coach collaborated with Imma, a virtual Tokyo-based AI influencer), but it will pick up steam in 2025. 3️⃣ AI search will be used to sell you things Sarah Nesheim, Cofounder of Crafted, says: “AI powered search and chat experiences will make it criminally easy to buy something.” Google shopping, Perplexity’s Buy with Pro, TikTok shopping, etc. are all leveraging AI to streamline the path from search to purchase. 4️⃣ AI-Led Growth replaces Product-Led Growth Instead of sales-led or product-led sales motions, welcome to AI-led growth. Companies like 1mind are creating the AI Concierge experience. You'll be able to talk to an AI avatar to figure out whether a product is a fit for you. AI demos and AI sales calls will also become the default b/c they can work 24/7 and without scheduling tetris. 5️⃣ AI Sales Agents will Struggle, but Find their Niche AI for outbound sales will hit avoidance/skepticism in 2025, but they will emerge victorious. We will see an explosion in “microcampaigns” - using AI to curate a hyper-targeted and timely list of buyers based on rich and varied datasets. Yuriy Zaremba, CEO of AISDR predicts: “2025 will be the year of fully AI-automated micro-campaigns.” 6️⃣ The death of monthly subscriptions As AI costs are so unpredictable, we will see an accelerating shift to usage-based pricing, instead of monthly subscriptions. As Kyle Poyar, creator of GrowthUnhinged says: “We're moving away from charging for access to software and toward a model of charging for the work delivered by a combination of software and AI agents.” But companies who do this will need to figure out ways to estimate costs for users - otherwise it'll be a hard sell. In conclusion... 2025's winners won't just build with AI. They'll market with it, sell with it, and price for it. What's your strategy? #ai #technology #startups #2025 #artificialintelligence

🔮 I've been thinking a lot about what we can expect for AI in marketing in 2024. While nobody can perfectly predict the future (even me), here's my educated guess about the top 5 things in store for AI in marketing for 2024: 1️⃣. The Rising Bar of Expectation: CMOs and marketing leaders are rapidly recognizing that teams leveraging AI are gaining a competitive edge, and a divide between companies that use and don't use AI is appearing. Companies and individual marketers not on board are visibly lagging. In 2024 the expectation will no longer just be about adopting AI for one or two marketing use cases, but infusing it into everything we do. AI will transition from being viewed as a mere tool, to being an integral part of every marketer's daily workflow. This extends beyond content creation; it's going to redefine every marketing facet, from strategy, to execution, to analysis. 2️⃣. Strides in AI Technology: We're on the cusp of witnessing more groundbreaking advancements in AI capabilities, particularly in video and strategic reasoning. I think 2024 will be the year AI video catches up to where we got with image and text this year, promising unprecedented creative possibilities. Beyond video, the evolution of the intelligence level of AI large language models will continue at a pace that's hard to fathom, with each leap surpassing our current understanding of what's possible. 3️⃣. Automation – A Double-Edged Sword: There will be a drive towards fully automating AI processes, and this push will bring its share of triumphs and pitfalls. We'll hear lots of stories of automation miracles alongside cautionary horror stories of premature or misguided deployment. 4️⃣. The Shift in SEO Paradigms: A dramatic shift is looming over SEOs utility as a marketing strategy. As generative AI redefines search behaviors, traditional SEO is likely to see a dramatic decline in effectiveness. In response, marketers and companies are poised to rethink their strategies around SEO, and AI use policies. I foresee a major shift for many marketing leaders from a fear of "training" an AI during content generation, to actively seeking ways to train AI to their advantage, while generating AI content. This reorientation from traditional SEO to AI Optimization (AIO) represents a tectonic shift in digital marketing. 5️⃣. The AI-Infographic Nexus: Another exciting frontier is the intersection of AI with text within images, especially in infographics. I expect advancements in AI to break new ground in the creation of sophisticated, AI-generated infographics with accurate spelling and grammar, overcoming current limitations. As we look towards 2024 and beyond, the message is clear: Marketers need to embrace AI, not as a tool, but as an essential partner in marketing. The divide between those who adapt and those who don't is already widening, and staying on the cutting edge of AI adoption is no longer an option but a necessity for success.

Are you keeping up with the AI marketing shifts that are reshaping how brands connect with consumers? Here’s a breakdown of the key trends you need to know: 1- Hyper-Personalization at Scale AI is turning mass marketing into one-to-one experiences. By analyzing real-time data, brands can deliver tailored interactions that drive engagement and loyalty. 2- AI-Powered Content Creation Content production is no longer a bottleneck. AI tools generate, optimize, and scale content across platforms—faster, smarter, and with greater consistency. 3- Conversational AI is Reshaping Engagement Chatbots and virtual assistants aren’t just answering questions. They’re building relationships, automating sales, and providing seamless customer experiences 24/7. 4- AI-Optimized Advertising AI is redefining paid media. From real-time targeting to automated bidding, brands are seeing higher returns with AI-driven ad strategies. 5- The Future of SEO is AI-Driven Search algorithms are evolving, and AI helps brands stay ahead. From predictive insights to content optimization, AI-driven SEO is the key to organic growth. 6- Video Marketing Meets AI AI-powered tools streamline video editing, automate captions, and personalize video content, making video marketing more efficient and impactful than ever. 7- Predictive Analytics is the Competitive Edge AI doesn’t just track consumer behavior—it predicts it. Smarter insights lead to better decisions, stronger retention, and more effective marketing strategies. 8- Voice Search is Changing How We Find Information With the rise of voice assistants, brands need AI-driven voice search optimization to stay discoverable in a voice-first world. 9- Visual Search is Reinventing E-Commerce Consumers are searching with images, not just text. AI-powered visual search makes product discovery seamless and more intuitive. 10- AI is Transforming Influencer Marketing AI identifies real engagement, filters out fake followers, and ensures partnerships are backed by data, not guesswork.

Everything that brands have built their Amazon strategy on is changing with AI & creators. For years, e-commerce has been built around search: you go to Amazon or Google, type in a need, and find the best match. That’s been the core of online shopping. But here’s where things are changing: products are now finding YOU. My wife recently bought an EMF harmony device—not because she searched for it, but because she saw someone talk about it on Instagram. It’s a perfect example of social commerce in action, where the product finds the customer instead of the other way around. This is the future. AI will change how search works, making it more conversational. Instead of typing “60-inch TV,” imagine asking for “the top 3 60-inch OLED TVs under $1,000 with the best reviews,” and AI instantly providing a tailored comparison. On the other hand, creators are influencing buying decisions more than ever, with social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube becoming shopping hubs. Gen Z often starts their product research on TikTok, moves to Amazon or a DTC website, and sometimes even buys directly from TikTok Shop. The journey is social-first. This shift is also building trust. Instead of relying on anonymous reviews, you’re seeing creators—people you follow and trust—showing you the product in use, backed by real-life experiences. And as AI reshapes e-commerce, we’ll see search and shopping become smarter and more personalized.

🦾 The Future of Influence Marketing: AI Agents‬ or *Agentfluence Marketing* This week, I had the privilege of watching Amy Webb share her vision for the future of marketing at OMR. She painted a fascinating picture of what's coming, a world where AI influencers and multi-agent systems redefine how brands connect with consumers (and even other machines). Here are my key takeaways: 🌀 Strategic Foresight is a Must: Combining trends (what we know) and uncertainties (what we can't control) is essential for building future-proof strategies. It’s not just about predicting the future, but being prepared for multiple plausible outcomes. 🤖 AI Agents are the New Influencers: Just like social media reshaped digital influence, the next wave might include AI agents, capable of self-organizing and influencing both humans and other AI systems. 🛠️ Think Beyond B2C and D2C: We might soon see the rise of AI-to-Consumer (A2C) models, where AI systems handle everything from product design to manufacturing, potentially cutting out traditional retail players. 🗺️ Prepare for 520+ Marketing Channels: The current 52 mediums for messaging are just the beginning. Expect an explosion in niche channels as AI continues to reshape the digital landscape. 🚀 Take Action Now! There are endless opportunities and we shouldn't wait. 👉 Build agent-friendly brand identities 👉 Experiment with AI influencer pilots 👉 Embrace agent-to-agent marketing 💭 If this sounds a bit out there, I get it. But as Amy reminded us, the companies that thrive will be those that anticipate change, not just react to it. Everything she shared isn't on possible outcomes for 2050, but more for the next 24 months. Don't guess. Don't wait. #AI #Marketing #RetailInnovation

🌶️ SPICY TAKE: Websites are becoming an outdated eCommerce tool That's because #AI is shifting the web from human-centered browsing to agent-led buying (More details here: https://lnkd.in/gCxTJKSv). As we move to machine-to-machine (M2M) commerce, #CRO and #A/B testing are likely to look very different In the near future, I envision a landscape where websites are no longer the primary touch points for shoppers Instead, I expect "websites" will be rich structured data snippets, hyper-personalized to the individual user, based on past AI agent-assisted searches and buying behavior The interface will likely be through an AI app, bot or GPT tool -- not a website or landing page From this vantage point, it's tempting to think CRO is imploding from the inside out. . . But, for forward thinkers, there are definitely opportunities. #Experimenters will be needed more than ever. Just in new places Here are the top-3 ways I anticipate experimenters will be able to reposition themselves in an M2M, AI-driven world: 1️⃣ OPTIMIZE FOR AGENT-FRIENDLY DATA AND FEEDS ⚡ AI agents, GPTs, and AI shopping bots will likely become the main eCommerce tools They'll likely rely on structured, accessible, and interpretable data As a result, they'll be increasing need for experimenters to specialize in optimizing meta data, schema, and structured data for AI product catalogs EXPERIMENTATION OPPORTUNITIES: ✅ Test tagging to determine which data format is the most visible and preferred by AI agents 🙉 The KPI will be higher-rankings in AI result/recommendations 2️⃣ DESIGN & TEST AI PROMPTS ⚡ Shopping will become more prompt-based, like “find me the best wireless headphones under $200” EXPERIMENTATION OPPORTUNITIES: ✅ Test prompt responses to favorably influence AI outputs ✅ Optimize LLM interaction design to show the most compelling product attributes 🙉 The conversion goal will become seeding AI tools to recognize and prioritize the client's brands offerings, first 3. OPTIMIZE EMBEDDED INTERFACES ⚡ With shopping likely to happen inside smart AI assistants, they'll be need to focus on multi-modal optimization (image + voice + text) and new forms of engagement EXPERIMENTATION OPPORTUNITIES ✅ Think like an AI-UX designer. Determine the journey when the AI is the customer, not people ✅ Test micro-interactions inside AI chat UIs, AR overlays, or voice interfaces ✅ Create copy that persuades bots, not people with the right algorithm inputs to see how how changes in backend data or structure impact AI result visibility 🙉 Conversion metrics will likely be "SERP" rankings in engines powered by LLMs, not just traditional SEO YOUR TURN: 📣 What do you think the future of experimentation looks like in this new AI, M2M paradigm? Share your thoughts and speculations below. Will the web as we know it cease to exist? ⬇️