• by Christine Perkett , Yesterday

Artificial intelligence has been a dominant theme in marketing discussions for years, but 2026 marks a critical shift. Brands are no longer debating whether to use AI. They are grappling with how AI is changing the way decisions get made, not just how campaigns get executed.

Yet amid the automations, efficiencies, and new platforms lies a paradox too few marketers are addressing. As AI becomes more integral to discovery and evaluation, human trust and clarity matter more, not less.

From Automation to Interpretation

AI’s earliest role in marketing centered on efficiency, taking on tasks like generating content, predicting behavior, and optimizing spend. That focus is evolving. Today, AI increasingly mediates how buyers find, compare, and shortlist brands before any human interaction occurs.

This creates an underexamined challenge. AI does not simply process content; it interprets it, summarizing, contextualizing and presenting a version of your brand as a direct answer to a question. In many cases, that AI-generated summary is the first, and sometimes only, introduction to a brand a buyer gets.

Which means marketing is no longer just influencing perception. It is shaping what AI finds easy to explain with confidence.

Where Many Brands Go Wrong

Most marketers respond by producing more content -- more blogs, campaigns and messages across more channels.

But AI does not evaluate brands by volume.

It forms an opinion by identifying a small number of authoritative explanations. These include core pages, clear descriptions of what a company does, who it is for, and how it is different. AI then checks whether those explanations are consistent and credible.

When those signals are unclear, fragmented, or overly promotional, AI fills in the gaps -- often imperfectly.

This is where strong brands can still be misunderstood -- not because they lack activity, but because they have not made their story easy for machines to summarize accurately.

How Marketers Can Adapt

So how can brands market more effectively in an AI-mediated world?

First, prioritize explainability over volume. Make sure a small set of core pages clearly and consistently answer fundamental questions about your brand. If a human, or an AI, cannot summarize what you do in a few sentences, that is a signal worth fixing.

Second, structure for interpretation. Content should not only sound good to people. It should be organized so machines can confidently extract meaning. Clear headings, unambiguous language, and well-defined relationships between ideas matter more than clever copy.

Third, reinforce authority beyond your own channels. AI systems rely heavily on third-party validation. Earned media, expert commentary, and credible references do more than build human trust; they help AI decide what to believe.

Trust Still Wins, But It Has to Be Legible

This is not about choosing between AI and human-centered marketing. AI amplifies what is already there.

If your marketing reflects clarity, consistency, and genuine credibility, AI will reflect that back to the market. If it does not, no amount of automation will fix the gap.

In an environment where AI increasingly shapes first impressions, the brands that win will not be the loudest or the most automated. They will be the ones that make trust and meaning easy to identify and understand.