For the past two decades, the internet has revolved around movement. You search on Google, click a result, land on a website, maybe share it on Facebook or TikTok, and if you’re a marketer, you measure the journey in impressions, reach, and conversions. Traffic has been the heartbeat of the digital economy, the universal signal that something is working.
That rhythm is starting to change.
A new generation of AI-powered browsers such as OpenAI ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity’s Comet, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot in Chrome and Edge are redefining what it means to go online. These browsers no longer simply display the web; they interpret it. They read pages, summarise information, and act on behalf of the user.
Instead of typing a query into Google and clicking through results, people will increasingly ask their browser a question and receive a single, synthesised answer. No links, no tabs, no scrolling through pages of SEO-optimised content. The browser itself becomes the experience.
For consumers, this feels effortless. For brands, it represents a profound shift in how visibility, discovery, and influence actually work.
The Disappearing Journey
In the traditional web, discovery meant exploration. A question led to a search, a search led to a click, and that click led to a site. Every step was measurable and monetisable. It was a system that built the foundations of Google Ads, Meta’s advertising network, and the influencer economy on TikTok and Instagram.
AI browsers are compressing that journey.
When ChatGPT Atlas can answer a question instantly or Perplexity can summarise five sources into a single paragraph, there is no need for a user to visit multiple sites. The click disappears, and with it, the metrics that marketers have relied on for two decades. The consumer sees the answer, not the ecosystem that produced it.
That shift undermines everything from search rankings to ad impressions. The question for brands is no longer how to get seen, but how to be represented.
From Visibility to Representation
Visibility is about showing up. Representation is about how you are described when you do.
As AI browsers mediate the web, the power to frame your brand increasingly sits with algorithms that decide what is relevant, factual, and trustworthy. Your carefully crafted website, your thought leadership article, your keyword strategy—all of it now depends on whether the AI behind Google Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or Perplexity decides you are worth including.
The next generation of marketing is not just about being found; it is about being understood. That means using structured data, maintaining a consistent tone, verifying claims, and publishing information that AI can accurately interpret. The emerging discipline of Generative Engine Optimisation will replace SEO as the practice that determines whether your brand is mentioned, misrepresented, or missed entirely.
A Narrower, Faster Web
For users, this will feel seamless. You will be able to ask your ChatGPT browser to find a family holiday, plan your meals for the week, or summarise an article while you scroll TikTok. The friction of search disappears, but so does choice.
Instead of browsing multiple sites or discovering new brands through social feeds, users will act on what their AI recommends. The web becomes more efficient, but also more filtered. The relationship shifts from you and the internet to you and your AI assistant. Trust moves from brands to the systems that mediate them.
What This Means for Advertisers
As AI begins to shape every stage of discovery, the economics of advertising will evolve.
Google’s search business, which depends on people clicking through ads, will feel the squeeze as AI answers appear directly in the results window. Meta, TikTok, and YouTube will remain powerful because they own closed ecosystems with deep engagement data, but even there, recommendation algorithms may increasingly be influenced by AI-generated context rather than direct human behaviour.
Marketers will need to diversify where and how they build awareness. Brand trust will become the default filter because AI systems will rely on credibility and consistency when choosing what to surface. Owned channels such as CRM, email, newsletters, and communities will provide the most reliable routes to real human engagement. Retail media networks including Amazon, Tesco, and Walmart will grow in importance thanks to their verified data and closed-loop measurement. Finally, content clarity will matter as much as creativity. Product data, FAQs, and service descriptions must be structured and factual so that AI browsers interpret and reference them correctly.
Traffic may decline, but representation—how your brand appears inside AI-generated answers—will define influence.
From Managing Visibility to Earning Trust
For marketers, this is the next major pivot. The open web once rewarded whoever could buy, optimise, or hack their way to the top of Google’s results. The AI-mediated web will reward whoever earns trust with both humans and machines.
That means thinking beyond campaigns and channels, and building marketing ecosystems based on truth, clarity, and verifiability.
AI browsers will not kill marketing, but they will end the illusion that visibility alone is enough. The next decade will belong to brands that make themselves easy to trust and impossible to misinterpret—by people and by the algorithms now deciding what those people see.
Because in a world where ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity decide what gets surfaced, the question is not how many clicks you can buy, but whether you still show up in the answer.
