Marketing is going through a pretty interesting phase right now. AI writes. AI designs. AI answers questions. Google answers before we even click. Influencers no longer want just free products and fees. Brands are desperately trying to sound like Gen Z. And somewhere in the middle of all that, there’s still one person we’re trying to convince to buy something. Remember them? The customer? Yes. Still here. So we picked out a few changes currently shaping the marketing landscape. Marketing is slowly becoming less about who can produce the most content, and more about who has a strong enough idea, identity and authority to be considered relevant by both people and algorithms. Let’s get into it.
1. Your next customer probably won’t Google you. They’ll ask ChatGPT.
For years, digital marketing followed a relatively simple logic. You have a question. You open Google. You type it in. You get ten results. You probably open the first three. The rest barely matter.
Today, that can be reduced to one step: you ask ChatGPT.
Google is also increasingly integrating generative AI answers directly into search results, and that’s where things start getting interesting for marketers.
For years, the question was: HOW DO WE GET INTO THE TOP THREE RESULTS ON GOOGLE?
In 2026, the question is becoming: HOW DO WE BECOME ONE OF THE BRANDS AI CONSIDERS WORTH MENTIONING?
So does that mean SEO is dead?
NO. Please, let’s not bury SEO again. It has died enough times already.
Even Google’s official guidance for AI-powered search makes it clear that traditional SEO principles are still relevant. The difference is that the way we think about visibility is becoming slightly broader.
It’s no longer enough to focus only on keywords, Google rankings and website clicks. What matters more and more is whether there is enough high-quality, clear and credible information about your brand for different systems to understand: WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOU DO AND WHY YOU ARE RELEVANT TO PEOPLE.
In other words, we’re no longer creating content just for the “like”. We’re creating it to become part of a relevant answer.
What does that mean for brands?
Suddenly, the things we were a little too quick to label as “old-school marketing” start gaining value again.
Good PR, relevant articles, a quality website, brand mentions in credible sources, reviews, expertise, consistent positioning, original content that doesn’t sound generic or painfully dull.
So, ironically: the more artificial the internet becomes, the more valuable real authority gets.
And we quite like that plot twist.
2. Ranking first on Google may no longer mean what it used to
Let’s continue where we left off. Imagine you’ve spent years investing in SEO to rank first for a specific question. You finally make it. Congratulations.
Except now there may be an AI-generated answer sitting above you that has already explained exactly what the user came looking for. Slightly inconvenient.
AI answers are changing the logic of search because, in some cases, users can get what they need without ever clicking a traditional search result.
Marketing may become harder to measure because of this.
And maybe smarter. For years, we fell in love with everything we could put neatly into a spreadsheet.
Clicks, CPC, CTR, conversions, ROAS. Lovely. Clean. Everything comes with a percentage. The problem is that people don’t buy inside Excel.
They see you on Instagram. Forget about you. Three days later, they see your article. Forget about you again. A friend mentions you. They Google you. Check your reviews. Ask ChatGPT. Spend another two weeks circling around the information. And only then do they buy.
So don’t be fooled when your marketing dashboard says: Organic Search → Conversion
Of course. We’re sure that one click did absolutely everything…
3. An influencer is no longer just someone you send a product and a brief to
Influencer marketing is growing up too.
For a long time, the model looked like this:
- The brand has a product.
- The influencer has an audience.
- The brand gives the influencer money.
- The influencer says: “Guys, you’ve ALL been asking me about this.”
No one asked, but let’s continue.
Today, the relationship between creators and brands is starting to shift. We’re seeing models where creators are no longer just paid promoters, but longer-term partners, advisors, collaborators and even brand co-owners. And that actually makes a lot more sense than it may seem at first.
An audience has become a business asset.
If someone has spent ten years building a community of one million people who trust them, they’re not just bringing “reach”, which is how many people still look at it. They bring: distribution, trust, audience insight, feedback, creative input and potentially customers.
So why should they always receive only a one-off fee? Realistically, it doesn’t make much sense.
Influencer marketing is shifting from transaction to partnership.
Of course, that doesn’t mean every local food influencer should get 12% of a restaurant after three Reels. But it does point to something much more important: the best collaborations will no longer feel like bought media space.
They’ll feel like a natural connection between a person, a product and an audience. Because people have become very good at spotting the difference between:
“They paid me to say I love this.” and “I genuinely use this and honestly recommend it.”
The difference shows. Sometimes from a mile away.
4. Brands, you do not have to use every word Gen Z invents
This one is a personal favourite. Brands discovered words like maxxing, mogging… and a whole family of internet slang born inside different online subcultures.
And then the thing that always happens when a marketing department discovers a new word happened. The famous meeting.
“Gen Z uses this. Can we somehow use it too?”
A trend is not a brand voice!
Just because your audience uses a certain word doesn’t automatically mean your brand should use it too. For example, your audience may also say “bro”. But if you’re a private bank, perhaps we shouldn’t start sending newsletters that say Bro, our interest rates are insane.
There is a line. It’s called self-respect.
You do not have to imitate your audience to connect with them.
Sometimes the smartest reaction to a trend is: not participating. Because there is something worse than a brand that isn’t on trend. A brand that tries extremely hard to prove it knows the trend exists.
You know when a parent learns one new phrase and then spends the next six months forcing it into completely wrong situations? That.
5. AI content now comes with another question: do we have to tell people it’s AI?
As of August 2, 2026, a new part of the EU AI Act’s transparency obligations applies to certain types of AI-generated and manipulated content.
The obligations depend on the type of content, how it is used and the context, and they are especially relevant when it comes to deepfakes and certain AI-generated or manipulated materials.
But from a marketing perspective, the more interesting part is something else. Because now a new question appears:
How much AI does an audience actually want in a brand’s communication?
And even more importantly: How much AI can they tolerate before they stop trusting what they’re seeing?
We touched on this in a previous article as well. AI is available to everyone now. Everyone uses it. Everyone thinks they understand marketing. Everyone thinks they know how to use AI in a way no one can detect. They can. Very easily, trust us.
AI itself is not the problem. The problem starts when the technology replaces the entire idea instead of helping bring the idea to life.
6. The biggest marketing tool is not a new tool at all
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Marketing has become almost too easy to make. What’s hard is making marketing that actually means something.
It has never been easier to open Canva. It has never been easier to write copy. It has never been easier to build a website. It has never been easier to launch an ad. It has never been easier to produce 30 pieces of content a month.
And that’s exactly why execution alone now means almost nothing.
If everyone has access to the same tools, then the tool itself is no longer the advantage.
The advantage is good judgement, a strong idea, taste, strategy, an exceptional understanding of people and the ability to recognise what should not be done.
So what does all of this actually mean for brands?
Marketing is becoming more technologically advanced, while at the same time rewarding the things technology still struggles to provide on its own: a clear identity, good judgement, good taste, an understanding of context and trust.
Tools will change, and they will change fast. Platforms will change too. The way we search the internet is already changing.
But a brand that knows who it is and who it is speaking to will still have something that is far more difficult to automate.
