• by Natalie McCaffrey , December 20, 2024

AI is transforming the customer journey in ways that go beyond GenAI buzz, with chatbots reshaping how consumers discover products. Data from the 2024 Black Friday/Cyber Monday period revealed a 27x surge in retail site traffic driven by AI chatbots compared to 2023, highlighting their growing role in delivering direct, personalized recommendations via LLM-powered platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. This shift underscores the increasing importance for brands to optimize for these AI-driven pathways to shape brand perception and meet evolving consumer expectations.

It's not just the rapid growth of AI chatbots transforming consumer shopping behavior this holiday season; emerging AI tools are empowering brands to stay agile and quickly address challenges, redefining how they navigate dynamic market demands.

The first step is to not lose sight of how your customer is impacted, and understand the role AI plays in their lives. Like any new tech, you need to understand its implications on your brand and your customers—the good and the bad. In some instances, it might not make sense to use AI, but that’s why it’s important to include human oversight while having a strong testing strategy and roadmap in place.  Constantly learning what works and what doesn’t allows you to mitigate risk by testing in a small sandbox.

Successful brands that won Black Friday were testing strategies months in advance, so they could implement them with confidence. Those brands didn’t go into Black Friday or Cyber Monday feeling uneasy, because they knew their creative worked, their offers were solid, and their channels were optimized.

To take advantage of AI opportunities, it’s important to have a holistic understanding of the customer journey, including how current and emerging touchpoints are shifting behaviors. With this understanding, you have a better idea of where and when your brand shows up in their discovery and how to best optimize.

LLM optimization ensures that you’re putting your best foot forward as consumers continue to incorporate AI into their shopping journey. It could also be a first-mover advantage for some brands to invest heavily in AI -- although we don’t currently know the volume of adoption, as we believe gen AI will only continue to grow. For brands that aren’t considering using AI in the future or consider it a harbinger of doom, a huge opportunity to establish yourself as a leader in the space is in danger of being missed -- especially since AI has both an internal and external impact.

It’s easy to write off optimizing for AI, but it’s becoming a crucial aspect of SEO and you need to consider that within your whole marketing strategy. This includes everything from website data and visibility across credible publications and relevant partners to influencers and social so you can produce trusted, high-quality content.

AI can help scale creative output, test new ideas, and uncover combinations humans might not think of, ultimately driving better performance during high-demand times. We’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to how AI is transforming the customer journey -- and starting now means you won’t be left behind.