When agents take the journey, where does the brand live?

TL;DR

As AI agents shift from answering questions to executing tasks, they research and shortlist options autonomously, often bypassing results pages, making the final click an unreliable measure of demand.

For brands, success still comes down to meeting people where they naturally spend their time, staying visible when they validate choices, and removing checkout friction. While paid media builds familiarity and trust that earns a brand its spot on the shortlist, clean product data and seamless purchase paths ensure agents, like Meta’s AI agent Muse, can complete the transaction effortlessly.

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Key changes and their significance

I keep coming back to something as the next wave of AI agents arrives: we’ve spent years designing digital experiences around people making choices. What happens when they delegate those choices?

Meta’s Muse can browse, coordinate tasks and act on someone’s behalf. OpenAI’s Dots are built to keep working between conversations, carrying an intention forward across steps, sessions and services. These are not search assistants with better answers. They are systems designed to research, compare and progress outcomes without waiting to be asked again.

Consider a simple request: find a hotel in Edinburgh this weekend, within budget, with a pool, and book it upon approval. The agent researches, shortlists options, and recommends one. Your brand may be evaluated and dismissed before a person reviews it, or it may secure the booking without a homepage visit.

That is not a distant future. LLMs and AI Overviews already answer some questions before a customer reaches a results page. Agentic AI extends that further down the funnel into comparison, evaluation and, potentially, transaction. We may still set the destination. Increasingly, an agent could decide the route.

Early download and usage figures point to growing consumer interest. Social Media Today reported on 1 October 2026 that Meta’s Muse app had surpassed 5 million downloads in its first 22 days and had more than 3 million weekly users.

But for brands and retailers, the question is not just whether consumers will use agents, but who will own the customer relationship when they do. That friction is already surfacing, with Amazon moving to block Meta’s Muse from accessing its product listings.

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What this means for paid media and search

This changes how we think about performance.

Clicks, sessions and last-click conversions have never told the full story. But if agents are researching, comparing and building shortlists before a person reaches a search result or paid placement, the final click becomes an even less reliable explanation of what drove demand.

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For search

For search, the task becomes broader than winning a visit. Brands need to be easy for an agent to understand, assess and recommend. That means accurate information wherever an agent may look for signals, including but not limited to:

• Websites
• Product feeds
• Listings
• Reviews
• Availability
• Pricing

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For Paid Media

When an assistant can research options, compare prices, and complete an order in the background, the customer journey does not disappear. It just becomes less visible.

For clients, success still comes down to two fundamentals: being present where your audience naturally spends time, and being unmissable when they have active intent to buy.

Search is not going anywhere either. Google held 89.94% of worldwide search-engine market share in September 2026, according to Statcounter. While market share does not measure every individual step in a buying journey, it clearly shows that Google remains the central hub for validating ideas, checking credibility, and comparing choices.

Formats like social, video, and display build the familiarity and emotional recall needed for a brand to be requested by name or approved on an agent’s shortlist. At the same time, creator and publisher content provides the third-party credibility that both consumers and AI systems use to evaluate reputation. Meanwhile, search, shopping and retail media capture demand at the point of intent, providing the structured data, competitive pricing and shelf prominence that both people and shopping agents need to make the final choice.

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Brand and measurement

Brand still matters here. Consumers will need to trust a brand, arguably even more so when faced with a shortlist of agent recommendations.

Do not evaluate channels in silos. GA conversion paths can reveal how upper-funnel touchpoints feed later search and direct visits. At the same time, incrementality testing helps prove which campaigns are driving genuine growth rather than just claiming the final interaction.

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What should brands do now?

The immediate priority is not to rebuild everything for agents, but to ensure the information they access is accurate, clear, and useful when making decisions.

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Start with the basics.

Product and service details, pricing, availability, locations, eligibility, policies and reviews must be current and consistent. An agent cannot recommend a brand confidently if the information it finds is incomplete, contradictory or difficult to interpret.

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Make the brand easier to understand

Brands should also make it easier to understand what they are known for. This goes beyond ranking individual pages or keywords. Search engines and AI systems need to connect a business with its products, audiences, expertise, and genuine points of difference. Helpful comparison content, clear FAQs, service guidance and credible proof can all support that understanding while helping customers make better decisions too.

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Strengthen the technical foundations.

The technical foundations matter as well. Important information should be accessible, machine-readable and properly maintained, particularly where prices, stock, promotions or service terms change regularly. The strength of a product feed or landing page may become just as important as the strength of the campaign driving traffic to it.

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Understand where paid media creates demand.

For paid media, the key question is whether activity creates demand or simply captures it. Investment that builds familiarity, trust and preference earlier in the journey becomes more important when an agent is shaping the shortlist. That could mean testing activity in high-quality publisher, creator, affiliate and contextual environments where people research, compare and form opinions.

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Evolve measurement

Finally, measurement needs to evolve before behaviour changes at scale. Establish a baseline now across:

• Brand demand
• Organic visibility
• Referral patterns
• Platform reporting
• New-customer outcomes
• Conversion quality
  

Where possible, use experimentation and incrementality testing to understand how channels contribute across the journey.

The aim is not to move away from performance. It is to build a clearer view of the activity that creates consideration and confidence before the final click and to recognise when the route to purchase changes without the value of marketing disappearing.

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Final takeaway

‍The goal for clients is still to show up where people naturally spend their time, be there when they want to double-check their options, and make buying as easy as possible wherever they decide to do it.

Paid Media builds the human preference and demand around the agent, while clear product data and low-friction buying help Muse carry out the task.