Rise of the AI consumer: How can businesses sell to non-humans?

Brands rely heavily on visual packaging, shelf presence and advertising to stand out. In an AI-driven world, that won’t be enough. The reality is that your next customer might not choose your brand – AI might choose it for them.

Think about a grocery staple like milk. As AI-powered agents become more prominent, they will reshape how brands compete for consumer attention. Today, a smart fridge reordering milk might rely on your purchase history. Soon, though, it will focus on the specific product attributes your household prefers – organic, local, sustainable – rather than just the brand name.

Such a scenario gives lesser-known brands a chance to compete if they offer the right attributes: The AI might recommend a brand that is even more sustainable than the one you usually purchase, or a new local dairy. Currently, re-ordering is about convenience. Soon, it will also be about alignment with your values.

That means brands must begin to rethink their value proposition, both to consumers and to the AI agents that will be making decisions on their behalf. There is a lot at stake: New research from Cognizant and Oxford Economics predicts that by 2030, AI-driven consumers could influence up to 46% of U.S. spending.

The new rules of brand relevance

User experience plus AI is becoming the new consumer interface, with AI as the consumer’s ally.

No longer driven by emotional storytelling alone, brand relevance will depend on attributes, experience, and the ability to integrate with AI-driven decision-making. AI agents won’t just facilitate transactions; they will refine consumer preferences and introduce them to new brands.

For example, as AI-driven agents replace traditional search and browsing, the customer journey will become more conversational. Scrolling through a page of web search results and using AI conversational technology is very different. In web search, the visual impact of the brand is crucial. Not so much in conversational AI, where you can simply instruct your smart home agent to procure a product or service in a dialogue about what you value, with the agent curating in the backend.

In the latter scenario, it's more about matching your needs with a product that has the desired qualities, making the brand itself less important. Consumers will specify what they are seeking, and AI will pick the best match, regardless of brand.

Consider a hypothetical example around a vehicle purchase. You could have an agent to identify cars for you based on your preferences, another to find car insurance, and yet another to inform you about potential earnings from renting your car on Touro. This theoretical army of agents could curate a comprehensive view of all aspects related to a vehicle purchase. They could even proactively manage your needs, knowing when your lease is up, how much you've driven, and what you're paying for insurance. 

Agent-based consumer AI will begin to drive market change over the next two years as leading tech giants embed AI into consumer platforms, enabling low barriers to tech entry. The first wave has already begun, as consumers use AI to discover products and services. It is becoming commonplace for consumers to prompt ChatGPT to recommend restaurants or travel itineraries.

Keeping your brand in the conversation

If AI is deciding for consumers, how will your brand stay in the conversation? Here are five recommendations for brand leaders:

• Make your brand agent-friendly. Optimise for AI discovery. AI agents prioritise relevance and attributes, not brand names or advertising, at least for now. Implement rich, AI-readable metadata in product descriptions – for example, “organic, fair-trade, sugar-free” for food brands. Brands need to focus on structured product data, attributes, and performance metrics to ensure AI can recognise their products as high-quality matches. 
• Rely less on brand recognition. Consumers won’t always request brands by name, so AI will match them to products with the best attributes. Brands should identify their strongest brand attributes and own them in AI-driven marketplaces. For example, if you’re a coffee brand, don’t just market yourself as “premium”—position yourself as the best choice for “ethically sourced single-origin espresso.”
• Make AI work for you. Train models on your brand’s strengths. AI agents recommend products based on patterns, reviews, and data, not traditional branding efforts. Brands must work to ensure that first-party data, customer reviews, and other user-generated content feed into AI models used by the major AI platforms.
• Prioritise building direct consumer-AI relationships. As conversational commerce evolves, brands must integrate into AI-driven interfaces like chatbots, voice assistants, and recommendation engines. Companies should develop a branded AI experience that allows consumers to interact directly with the brand’s agent (for example, a custom GPT-powered concierge for product recommendations).
• Build AI-proof loyalty. Continuing to focus on post-purchase engagement is key here. AI may influence purchase decisions, but human experience drives repeat business. To remain top-of-mind, brands should strengthen customer loyalty programs, personalised post-purchase engagement, and direct AI-powered communication channels.

Ultimately, the brands that will stay in the conversation and lead it will be those that embrace AI and focus on the attributes that matter to consumers. 

Ben Wiener is Global Head of Cognizant Moment