AI has an opinion about your brand. Now what?

John Dawson, VP Strategy at Jellyfish, recently joined Dylan Conroy on The Ad Podcast to explore one of the biggest questions facing marketers today: AI has an opinion about your brand. Now what?

The conversation went beyond the familiar debate around AI search and SEO. Instead, John explored what happens when AI becomes part of the way people discover, evaluate and ultimately choose brands.

Here are some of the biggest shifts marketers should be thinking about.

AI is becoming a gatekeeper for brands

Traditional search asks brands to compete for visibility around keywords. AI introduces something different: models already have a view of your brand, built from the information they've encountered across the web.

As John puts it:

“Unlike traditional search, these models have been trained to have an opinion about your branded product already. We need to treat these models not just as an interface, but as a gatekeeper that will pass judgment on your branded product.”

That means understanding how AI currently perceives your brand, where that perception comes from and where gaps or inaccuracies exist becomes increasingly important.

Context matters more than keywords

AI is also changing the nature of discovery. A consumer isn't simply searching for “best beer.” They might be looking for something to drink at a beach gathering in France, something non-alcoholic after a workout, or something to bring to dinner with friends.

The context changes the answer, and therefore the brands that enter consideration.

“Keywords are a point in time,” says John. “What we’re seeing now is much more dynamic, and in many ways much closer to traditional comms planning.”

For marketers, this means thinking about the occasions, audiences and moments where their brand needs to be relevant, rather than chasing a single generic AI ranking.

Creative is becoming a system, not a finished asset

AI is also changing the relationship between media and creative. As platforms increasingly optimize both the placement and composition of an ad, brands may have less control over every individual execution.

John believes this will shift the role of marketers from creating and approving every finished asset toward establishing the ingredients and guardrails AI can work within.

“Marketers will be building ingredients and guidelines, rather than necessarily finished ads.”

That makes distinctive brand assets and clear brand governance more important, not less.

Creators could influence AI long after a campaign ends

The impact of creator content may also need to be measured differently. A video that doesn't generate huge engagement on launch can still become a source that AI models draw on months or even years later.

As John explains, “The half life of citations is considerably longer than necessarily the half life of a video from viewer and engagement.”

That creates a new dimension of value for creators: not just reaching audiences, but helping shape how AI understands a category and the brands within it.

The fundamentals of brand building still matter

Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that AI shouldn't be treated as a replacement for everything that came before it.

People will still see billboards, watch TV, encounter creators, walk into stores and discover brands through traditional media. AI simply introduces a new layer between people and brands, and increasingly that layer can influence what they consider and choose.

As John puts it:

“The temptation, I think, always in the industry is to throw out the old for the new. They say, ‘Well, this changes everything.’”

AI changes a lot. But the brands that succeed will still need to be distinctive, relevant and memorable. The difference is that they now need to make sure those qualities travel effectively across a world where an AI model may be the one introducing them to the consumer.