AI is rewriting the rules for building strong brands

The ideal world of marketing has always been clearly defined. Recognizing demand, reacting at the right moment and learning from every interaction. Not occasionally, but millions of times, simultaneously.

This has been the dream ever since marketing became a discipline. Philip Kotler probably sketched it on a napkin in 1967. John Wanamaker once lamented that he was wasting half his advertising budget - he just didn't know which half. Every CMO since then has nodded painfully.

There was never a lack of ambition. There was a lack of opportunity.

How the old system came about

People and organizations could not meet this requirement at the necessary scale.

We could not grasp demand at the moment it arose. We couldn't make decisions in real time. We couldn't coordinate actions across functions. And we couldn't continuously learn from every single interaction. So we invented detours.

We put people into fixed categories: the soccer mom, the millennial foodie, the business traveler. As if people lived in pigeonholes and not in complex, contradictory life realities.

We invented campaigns so that activities could be planned: the fall launch, the Christmas campaign, the Super Bowl spot. Because thousands of people and budgets in the millions cannot be managed spontaneously, but only in advance.

We planned annually because learning was slow. Yesterday's data was the basis for tomorrow's strategy. By the time we finally understood what worked, the world had long since moved on.

We created sewer silos because coordination was impossible. Television generated awareness. Print supported the consideration phase. Direct mailings triggered activation. Digital for the rest. Budgets were negotiated, responsibility was shifted.

These were not false ideas. It was a necessity due to technical and organizational limitations.

Procter & Gamble did not become a 300 billion dollar company by accident. Coca-Cola didn't conquer the world with bad marketing and Nike didn't invent a religion around sneakers on instinct.

That was the attention economy

An economy based on interruptions, on assumed demand. An economy of proxies instead of reality. People were interrupted while watching Friends with a commercial in the hope that they would remember the brand three days later in the supermarket. Sometimes it worked. Often enough, anyway.

Marketing has become the art of abstractions: Reach, contact frequency, impressions, clicks. We optimized proxy values because reality was not measurable or controllable at the moment. Entire careers were based on optimizing click rates by tenths of a percentage point. Growth was linear. Profit was indirect. You invested, waited, measured, adjusted, repeated. Feedback loops were long, causality remained blurred.

What AI makes possible

Today, AI removes these original restrictions. That is not my thesis. Sangeet Paul Choudary describes it in Reshuffle (2025): New technologies - especially AI - are collapsing the central restrictions of systems.

Not partially, but structurally.

New technologies make it possible to recognize needs and intentions as they arise and to react to them in the moment.

• Signals instead of assumptions: Anyone looking for "best running shoes for knee problems" is sending a concrete signal.
• Act in the moment: offers, recommendations, prices or content can be triggered in real time instead of in the next campaign.
• Coordination across functions: Pricing, content, service and commerce can react to each other when systems are connected.
• Learning on the job: Every interaction improves models and rules, instead of only after quarterly analyses.

What is important is what it is not. It's not just about better targeting. Amazon has known for a long time that you want the Godfather trilogy before you know it yourself.

Nor is it about better personalization. Spotify has long since created a playlist that knows the respective mood better than the therapist.

And it's not about productivity. Yes, AI writes emails faster and sometimes even better. That's a welcome side effect, but not the core.

It's about making the interaction between company and customer operational. What I described a few years ago as the interaction field is becoming real(The Interaction Field, 2020).

This is the economy of purchase intent (intent economy).

The real change: from proxy indicators to live signals

The old system optimized indicators because there was no alternative.

Segments stood for people. They sold to "suburban moms aged 35 to 54", and not to Tamara, who is training for her first half marathon, worrying about her aching knees and researching running shoes at 10 p.m. because that's when the kids are finally asleep.

Campaigns stood for interactions. They started in September because budgets were freed up and the agency was ready, not because people actually needed the product in September.

Funnel stood for Journeys. Awareness, consideration, purchase. Clean. Linear. Logical. But that's not how a real customer journey works. People see an ad, ignore it, hear about it from friends, read reviews, forget all about it, see another ad, click, get distracted, come back three weeks later - and buy. Or not.

Channels stood for coordination. Television attracted attention. Purchase intentions were recorded digitally and sales were made in retail. Each area was optimized for itself and wanted a bigger slice of the "budget pie". For customers, this seemed like a piecemeal approach.

AI is changing that.

An intention becomes a live signal, not a statistical assumption. You no longer assume that suburban moms want minivans. You realize that Tamara is researching seven-seaters because she organizes carpools to the soccer game and her Sharan is no longer sufficient.

Decisions are moving from planning cycles to continuous orchestration. You no longer decide in January what will be advertised in October. You react in real time to what people need right now.

Learning increases with every interaction. Netflix does not wait for quarterly surveys. Every playback, every pause, every rewind trains the algorithm. The system gets smarter while we sleep.

Marketing stops managing representations of reality. It begins to operate in reality itself.

Why this is changing the architecture of growth

In the attention economy, growth began with communication. Campaigns were developed, advertising space was bought, people's media consumption was interrupted and it was hoped that they would later remember commercials when the need arose. Growth was based on memory structures and mental availability. It was probabilistic, indirect and slow.

Demand was stimulated. Needs were created that previously did not exist. "Just Do It" did not react to demand for sneakers - it created a movement. That worked. But it required massive investment, patience and a high tolerance for mistakes.

Efficiency was optimized in silos. Reach per euro, click costs, conversion rates. But no one optimized the overall system because it was invisible.

In the end, the profit was an assumption. They spent 10 million dollars on marketing, sales increased by 30 million dollars. They assumed causality and hoped that the CFO wouldn't ask too many questions. Marketing mix modeling tried to sort that out. Mostly they produced reports from consultants, which then gathered dust.

In the intent economy, growth begins with demand. You recognize that Tamara is looking for running shoes and reacts immediately.

Intention triggers action, automated and measurable. Systems can coordinate end-to-end, from the signal to the recommendation to the transaction.

Uber does not have separate teams for awareness, consideration and conversion. Open the app, see the car, book, ride, pay. One system. One experience. One optimization.

Amazon knows which recommendation triggered which purchase. Google knows which ad generated which sales. Profit is easier to attribute because signals, display and purchase are more closely linked.

This is not a further development. This is a completely new growth architecture.

How brands win in the intent economy

In the attention economy, brands grew primarily in one way: in the minds of consumers. Associations were built up and mental availability increased. If someone wanted Coke, they thought of Coke. If someone needed shoes, they thought of Nike. This growth was real - but slow. It took years, often even decades.

That remains important. Even in the intent economy, you want people to think of your own brand first.

What is new is that brands also grow through attention at the moment of purchase intention. Attention is not the same as reach. Attention is focused, real and valuable because it comes from someone who has a need at that moment.

In intent-driven environments, a four-stage competition model is decisive:

Relevance: Is the consumer even considering this, for this specific need, at this moment? Anyone selling running shoes that are not relevant for "knee problems" practically does not exist at this moment.

Distinctiveness: Is the offer noticed and remembered? Distinctiveness attracts attention, but not a decision.

Differentiation: Is there a clear reason to choose this product? Many brands fail here because benefit arguments sound interchangeable.

Standard option (default): Are alternatives even seriously considered? Default is the reflexive choice because trust, habit and access interact.

Google is the standard for search. Amazon for product search. The iPhone is the default for smartphones in the Apple ecosystem. These brands no longer fight for attention. They own it.

The decisive factor is that each stage builds on the previous one and reinforces its effect.

Relevance comes into play. Distinctiveness ensures perception and differentiation for selection. Default for repeated choice with minimal friction. This creates strong economies of scale.

In the attention economy, more growth means more budget. A doubled media budget possibly doubled sales. Linear. Expensive. Exhaustive.

In the Intent Economy, growth becomes exponential as soon as the "default state" is reached. Greater intent. Faster learning. Better optimization. It's like an accelerating flywheel.

Netflix not only won through content, but as a standard for streaming. "Netflix and chill" became part of the language. Streaming = Netflix. That is default. That's accumulation. That's exponential profit.

The uncomfortable truth is: most brands are still struggling for relevance and distinctiveness, few achieve differentiation, and very few achieve default status.

But the intent economy makes "default" accessible to more brands than ever before - because intent can now be used directly, in real time and at scale.

The future is already here

And it is no longer just theory. Google Gemini and ChatGPT are already implementing this new architecture. It can be used today.

ChatGPT has a memory, knows preferences, previous conversations and needs. It has integrated shopping research, an agent-based browser (Atlas) and instant checkout. The purchase is complete without leaving the dialog.

Google has launched AI-supported shopping with Gemini: virtual shopping agents know what the customer wants. They compare and help with the purchase. All in one place.

Google uses the open standard: the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), while ChatGPT uses the open standard: the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). These are not proprietary solutions, but infrastructure. Like HTTP for e-commerce.

Search has changed fundamentally. It is no longer a directory of links, but a dialog that becomes a transaction.

You no longer type in "best running shoes for knee problems" and click through a dozen websites, read reviews, compare prices, open new tabs, set bookmarks, come back later and have forgotten what you actually wanted to do - and start all over again.

Instead, you ask: "I need running shoes. I have knee problems. I'm training for my first 10-kilometer run. My budget is around 150 dollars."

The system answers: "Based on your knee problems and your training goals, I recommend the Brooks Adrenaline GTS or the ASICS Gel-Kayano. The Brooks costs 140 dollars, the ASICS 160 dollars. Both offer excellent cushioning and high stability. What is more important to you: lower weight or maximum support?"

The key point is not convenience, but that the point of contact with the brand is shifting. If the decision is made in a dialog, customers see fewer brand websites, fewer landing pages and fewer classic funnels. The customer journey becomes more concentrated.

What this means for brands

Every brand that was built for the attention economy has become vulnerable.

If customers never visit a website, what happens to the direct relationship? If they never experience the brand story, what happens to positioning? If they never go through the funnel, what happens to conversion optimization?

The AI becomes an interface, recommendation engine and buying moment all in one. And it is not interested in brand guidelines, but solves the customer's problem directly.

This is why the four-stage model is more important than ever.

Relevance: Without precise product data, clear benefit logic and connection to the relevant distribution and data standards, brands and their products hardly exist in many recommendations.

Distinctiveness: If the AI cannot explain why the offer is different, it becomes interchangeable.

Differentiation: Without a clear reason to be the best choice, systems decide on price, availability or ratings and compete on the lowest common denominator.

Default: Without an automatic recommendation such as "I recommend XY for your needs", you are constantly competing for attention and the alternatives are also recommended.

Brands that achieve standard status in these systems gain disproportionately because attention, learning and access reinforce each other. Brands that fail to achieve this become less visible.

The architecture of the future

The intent economy is not coming. It is already here.

Google and OpenAI have already created this infrastructure. ChatGPT and Gemini are the new gateway to e-commerce. The Universal Commerce Protocol is the underlying infrastructure that makes the system functional.

It is a system that condenses intention, action and transaction into a single, continuous experience. The consumer articulates their needs in dialog. The system responds immediately. The transaction is seamless. Learning takes place in real time and the next interaction is even more intelligent than the previous one. Profit can be measured and optimized.

The winners will not be the brands with the biggest budgets, but those that understand how to become relevant, distinguishable, differentiated and thus the standard in these dialog-driven systems.

Because in a world where AI is the interface, attention is just the ticket and "intent" is everything.

Welcome to the Intent Economy.