As if marketing to humans wasn’t hard enough… now, you’re marketing to machines. What does the agentic era mean for marketers?
Agentic AI might sound like another buzzword, but if we’ve learned anything from every tech conference this year, it’s going to be a game-changer.
Agentic AI isn’t just another clever buzzword in the ever-expanding AI lexicon. This next evolution of artificial intelligence doesn’t just suggest or create – it acts. It decides, it purchases, it optimizes. It’s like giving your consumer a digital PA that’s constantly scanning the world for the best deals, the best experiences, the best brands.
“Every single marketer in this room is going to be marketing to bots,” warned advisor, academic and author Shelly Palmer at CES 2025. “We are going to be marketing to the personas that are on those phones.”
If you’re still thinking about old-school ad targeting, it’s time for a reset.
Bots are your new buyers
As Mastercard’s chief marketing and communications officer Raja Rajamannar put it: “It’s an era of bot-to-bot marketing. Your machines are now marketing to consumers’ machines.”
So what does that look like? Consumers no longer browse. Their AI agent does it for them. It knows their budget, their brand preferences, their sustainability values. It doesn’t need to be convinced with a 30-second spot – it needs structured data, trust signals and relevance in the moment.
Does that mean traditional tactics like ad IDs and SEO are on the chopping block? Palmer didn’t mince his words when he says: “It is the end of link-based search… They click on nothing. They summarize. If you’ve got the answer you want, why are you going to click?”
The marketing funnel just collapsed
Think about the implications: the classic awareness-consideration-conversion funnel is being flattened. If a machine can go from query to decision in seconds, your brand needs to be there before the question is even asked.
Piper Dolan from Team Lewis summed it up best: “If your brand isn’t already in position when AI makes its decision, you’re probably out of the race.”
Inside your AI-powered marketing team
Agentic AI isn’t just changing how you market to people – it’s changing how your team works, too, transforming four core roles:
- Campaign analysts now use AI to surface insights and optimize in real time.
- Ad execs are automating media decisions and budget shifts.
- Copywriters are tapping into AI to personalize content at scale.
- Strategists are generating instant, actionable reporting across every channel.
This isn’t about replacing jobs. It’s about unlocking capacity to do the strategic, creative work that machines can’t.
How to win in the agentic age
Here are three moves every marketer should make now:
- Optimize for machines, not just humans: if AI can’t find or understand your brand, it won’t recommend it. Clean, structured data and machine-readable brand cues are key.
- Design for real experiences: Rajamannar’s multi-sensory approach at Mastercard is a reminder that people still crave physical connection. From sound-emitting trophies to scented brand activations, emotional resonance still matters – perhaps more than ever.
- Automate the grind: if you’re still relying on manual workflows, you’re not keeping up. AI + automation = scale, speed and sanity.
This isn’t a drill. Agentic AI is already here. As Palmer put it: “Stop thinking about AI as a technology issue. It’s a leadership issue.”
This is your moment to lead. To reinvent the way you show up in a world where AI agents do the browsing, the buying and the brand-building. Because the question isn’t whether you can win hearts and minds any more; it’s whether you can win over the bots.
Feature Image Credit: Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
