For all the talk of generative AI upending the media agency business — I get daily pitches of this agency or that data platform rolling out a new proprietary AI system that changes everything! — it’s not as impactful as what’s happening to the search business.
Zero-click search and generative search optimization (GEO) are the new battle cries of the media planning and buying world, all because generative AI has upended search behaviors as we’ve known them the last 20 years — and with those changes, an even deeper upending of classic purchase-funnel activity.
Taken together, they’re forcing media agencies to rewire the guidance they give clients on how to ensure discoverability when AI agents and LLMs are doing the work that consumers and Google used to do. The term “Google it” just doesn’t have the same ring to this generation of consumers than even a decade ago.
Omnicom Media Group, Digiday has learned, is attacking this fundamental change head-on by combining research to uncover the new patterns in a report to its clients, as well as what it’s telling clients to do to get their online content ready to be discovered and acted on. It’s found that generative AI queries represent nearly 25% of searches, meaning that search has changed dramatically in a year.
The change has far-reaching consequences as consumers rely on generative AI-powered search for information, advice, comparison shopping and entertainment, or engage in full conversations. Increasingly they don’t click as much on publisher or brand websites, forcing all parties in the brand marketing and media landscape to re-think how brands engage consumers.
The report, authored primarily by Joanna O’Connell, Omnicom Media Group’s chief intelligence officer for North America, found major cultural shifts brought on by AI usage. The research, conducted in July, among 2,404 U.S. adults aged 18–72 asked them who’s using AI, what they are using it for, and why. Three out of four (75%) respondents said they’re using some form of AI, while 46% said they’re using it daily. Trust in generative AI overall rose from 37% to 61% from 2024 to 2025, while trust in Google’s AI Overviews (which O’Connell jokingly referred to as a “gateway drug” for AI-driven search — Google “built a bridge to this technology, and people like it”) surged from 44% to 68%. Nearly two out of three consumers (65%) now expect to get their ideal answers from AI Overviews.
The research also uncovered five cultural shifts too, including the fact that people increasingly expect “warm tech” — that machines understand them on a more emotional basis; that the gap between dreams and reality has gotten narrower; that technology adaptively learns and is capable of thought; that it’s ubiquity makes it as fundamental as electricity; and finally that it enables personalization at a scale never seen before.
In short, marketers need to learn how to market to AI to improve the likelihood of being featured in an AI prompt response. “The shift in less than a year is just absolutely remarkable,” said O’Connell.
Drilling into categories affected by the pattern and usage changes, the study noted that the types of categories consumers search for in AI corresponds to those where discovery and comparison are super-important, areas where consumers have to navigate a high volume and variety of choices. Travel (30%), personal care (27%), and groceries (25%) top the list, along with household goods (23%), clothing, (23%) and electronics (22%).
“As that generative recommendation provides utility, context, and helpful information, you’re going to use it and trust it more,” added Michael Sondak, OMG’s svp and head of search. “We’re seeing a collapse of the classic search marketing funnel, where someone looked for information, saw a list of results, both paid and organic, and might have navigated to multiple websites.”
“These things are now becoming companions in your shopping process,” added O’Connell.
Sondak is leading the charge at OMG on telling clients how to harness opportunity in this radically altered search landscape. This is where GEO comes into play. OMG is recommending what Sondak called the four Cs: consumers, content, code and credibility.
For brands to better understand consumers’ changed habits, said Sondak, they need to look at “how are people changing the way that they’re looking for information in a world where I would argue people are no longer searching, but are now asking questions, looking for answers to their problems or answers to their next product to go purchase? It’s much more active versus passive.”
Therefore, content needs to change. “Do [brands] have the right content across their owned and operated elements that are answering the new questions of how people are using these discovery engines?,” posited Sondak.
And with content tweaks, coding needs to change as well for LLMs to read it properly, he added. Finally, credibility comes with establishing trust with the LLM that the information being digested is credible.
OMG is recommending brands take five actions: understand the four Cs, starting with the consumer; audit how your brand is showing up online; refocus that audit to how a chatbot or agent might see the content; revamp the content accordingly; and then optimize and measure the impact of the changes.
And brands are taking notice and acting on the recommendations. “The report further validates that AI is transforming how consumers discover and shop, collapsing the purchase funnel,” said Eric Schwartz, svp and CMO of the Clorox Company, an Omnicom client. “As adoption accelerates, we’re making it easier to find and shop our brands through new GEO capabilities and experiments across the business. Our brands can’t afford to wait for a new ‘paradigm’ to settle — because it won’t. Winning now means embracing an always-on transformation mindset, fueled by rapid experimentation and continuous learning.”
OMG isn’t the only agency uncovering the new trends in AI’s impact on search. A new report from performance agency Net Conversion uncovered similar fundamental changes in consumer behavior. Among the 45% of consumers now using AI-powered recommendations for shopping, half report they’re spending more time researching purchases and consulting more sources compared to a year ago — not less.
This is happening more among younger shoppers: 23% of 18-29 year-olds say they use AI tools “often” or “always” when researching products, compared to just 15% overall.
The assumption has been that AI streamlines decisions. But this new research finds that consumers who us AI are behaving more like exhaustive researchers than quick decision makers. Whether AI is driving this behavior or simply attracting already thorough shoppers is unclear, but the correlation suggests the buyer journey isn’t simplifying as AI adoption grows.
Color by numbers
Forrester issued its 2026 predictions for marketing agencies in a report issued last week, authored primarily by vp and senior agency analyst Jay Pattisall. Among other predictions, the report expects further consolidation (either by Dentsu or WPP) to “spawn a dozen agency reviews.” Other stats worth mentioning:
85% of U.S. B2C marketing executives plan to review their media agencies in 2026. Six major brands reviewed media assignments in 2021, and 20 did so in 2023.
81% of U.S. B2C marketing executives plan to increase principal media investments to gain cost efficiency and value in 2026, leading to the prediction that the practice will grow to nearly 33% of total agency billings.
Forrester doubled the expected loss of agency jobs to automation and generative AI from 7.5% by 2030 to 15% in 2026 due to automation, redundancies, and efficiency.
Finally, the creator marketing industry will shift from control mostly by media agencies to creative and social agencies over the course of 2026.
Takeoff & landing
WPP Media notched another win last week, signing transportation giant Maersk as a strategic media partner, interested in using the holdco’s Open platform. The business will operate out of EssenceMediacom in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Interpublic Group landed global agency partner duties for Bayer’s Consumer Health division, and will handle media, creative and production across its portfolio. Agencies that lost some of the business include Omnicom and WPP Media’s Mediacom. Meantime, health marketer Kenvue, which includes the embattled Tylenol brand, put its business into review, affecting IPG and Publicis on the media front.
Stagwell’s Assembly is predicting $10.1 billion in media spend for the midterm elections next year, representing a 15% increase over the 2022 midterms. God help us all.
Mastercard last week launched Mastercard Commerce Media, a new digital media network that taps into its base of 25,000 advertisers and 500 million enrolled consumers.
London-based performance marketing agency Journey Further acquired influencer marketing agency Saulderson Media.
Cosmo 5 is the new name of digital agency Labelium Group, and now bills itself as an omni-channel marketing intelligence group.
Direct quote
“I was talking to a client a few weeks ago who said they were fed up with the holdco model and the lack of choice they had… They then wondered as to whether they should burn it all down and start over.”
— Jay Wilson, a vp analyst at Gartner, said to Seb Joseph in the latter’s Future of Marketing Briefing.