As a marketing educator, writer, and entrepreneur, I’m obsessed with understanding the impact of AI on marketing and sales.

On the latest episode of The Marketing Companion, I was fortunate enough to speak with Sandy Carter, who has a broad global view of the new realities.

Sandy, currently leading a high-growth tech unicorn and author of the new book AI First, Human Always (yes, I had the honor of writing the forward!), brings a rare blend of hands-on leadership and futurist perspective.

You can listen to this amazing show just by clicking here:

Click here to enjoy The Marketing Companion Episode 323

And here are a few of the highlights from our talk:

From Counting Clicks to Decoding Intention

For years, marketers have focused on measuring attention, including views, clicks, impressions, and dwell time. We optimized content and spent ad dollars based on where eyeballs went, striving to interrupt or insert ourselves into the customer’s stream of consciousness.

Thanks to AI, that entire playbook is already getting upended. As Sandy pointed out, with advanced predictive tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, customers are now going straight to an agent who can not only surface information but also predict their needs.

Here’s the revelation: AI moves us from being marketers of “attention” to marketers of “intention.” When someone asks an AI assistant for recommendations, they’re stating exactly what they want—think “Give me the best CRM for a startup with $X budget and these features”—and bypassing traditional marketing funnels entirely. The agent already knows how to filter, rank, and recommend based on actual needs, not just exposure or interrupted attention.

The New Gatekeepers: How (and Where) AI Picks Its Winners

Naturally, our conversation turned to the practical question on every marketer’s mind: How do you become one of the five “recommended” brands that AI agents surface? When attention alone is no longer enough to get you into the consideration set, what signals matter?

Sandy’s real-world experiments and research laid it out:

Wikipedia Is Back in Style: AI tools routinely use Wikipedia to validate and select which products or companies to recommend. If you haven’t yet built or maintained a Wikipedia page for your business (or yourself!), you’re likely invisible to these agents.

Social Proof via Reddit: Surprisingly, Reddit threads and subreddits have become an influential social signal for AI. If your brand is being discussed positively in relevant Reddit communities, you’re more likely to make the cut. But beware: unresolved issues or complaints, even from years ago, can hurt you if your brand doesn’t participate actively and transparently.

Rich, Fact-Based Content Wins: AI loves structured, fact-heavy lists and articles — “five reasons to choose X,” “top ten features of Y” — even more than traditional SEO tactics. This means your blog’s FAQ pages, listicles, and data-driven content don’t just help search engines, but are directly picked up by generative models when responding to user prompts.

Authority Still Matters: Recent research (as discussed in a past episode with Andy Crestodina) shows AI privileges brand mentions in non-sales content, press articles, and academic references — pushing the importance of classic PR and media strategy back to the top.

The message is clear: if your brand isn’t showing up in these AI “source” locations, your odds of even being considered are catastrophically reduced.

Brand: The Ultimate “Override” in the Prompt Era

Yet, despite the surge of AI-powered decision-making, our conversation reaffirmed one crucial truth: brand still matters more than ever. AI might present five options when a user states their intention — but which one do they pick?

Often, the tie-breaker remains human: a personal recommendation, a powerful story, a reputation for exceptional service. I shared the story of my own Paris trip, where a friend recommended a gluten-free bakery that didn’t make it onto AI’s list, but immediately became my top pick. That’s the “brand override, ” an emotional shortcut humans still use to filter, select, and even instruct AI agents. Sandy reinforced this with her own experiences and evidence that many enterprise buyers, even after narrowing down their options via AI, still seek out word-of-mouth or social proof before making a commitment.

Even more fascinating: How do you become the default choice mentioned in AI user prompts? (“Book my trip on Delta,” “Research this with Salesforce,” etc.) This is the new holy grail — being so well-branded that you bypass the recommendation filter altogether.

Marketing to Machines (and Machine Influencers)

This doesn’t mean we can coast on reputation. We’re at the dawn of a future where, as Sandy observed, entire teams will be dedicated to “marketing to agents,” not just to human customers. Walmart is already experimenting with this, building strategies to influence the agents (and even humanoid delivery robots!) that are quickly becoming intermediaries for everyday purchasing decisions.

Imagine a robot delivering your pizza, choosing your drink, setting your table … Who is the true “chooser” in this experience: the human or the algorithmic assistant? Will P&G start marketing dishwasher soap to the pizza robot’s parent company, or keep marketing to households? The lines are already blurring.

The Next Generation: AI as Brand Builder (and Best Friend)

There’s another layer: The next generation of buyers — raised on Roblox, TikTok, and personalized AI companions — are already developing affinities through digital worlds. Sandy’s daughter knew to ask for Adidas after encountering it in-game, not through traditional ads or family habits. In many cases, the most influential “friend” or recommender may be an AI personality.

Let’s not underestimate the psychological shift underway. As AI companions move from functional assistants to social confidantes, their product recommendations carry new emotional weight. In fact, social AI companions already outpace ChatGPT in certain engagement metrics. That’s a transformational shift in the trust landscape—one that marketers must start preparing for now.

So, Where Do We Go from Here?

We’re moving from a world of *interrupt and persuade* to one of *predict and facilitate*, with AI agents as both gatekeepers and guides. As marketers, the urgent priorities are:

• Build and maintain accessible, accurate, and richly detailed references (Wikipedia, Reddit, media hits)
• Double-down on authority and co-occurrence in natural language (not just backlinks)
• Lean into transparent, conversational engagement with your audience and communities
• Embrace the necessity of “marketing to agents,” not just customers
• Never lose sight of the human: generate enough love, trust, and loyalty for your brand that customers ask for you by name — even when AI presents alternatives.

If there’s one lesson I took from our conversation, it’s that the era of “attention as currency” is giving way to intention, and the path from intention to purchase is no longer a straight line—nor is it exclusively under human control.

Stay sharp, stay engaged, and keep your brand both technologically visible and unmistakably human.

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The post Attention to Intention: How AI is Rewriting the Rules of Marketing and Sales appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

By Brooke B. Sellas, {grow} Contributing Columnist

Am I the only one being inundated with Facebook ads and emails about “winning with my totally proven and definitely in no way made up seven-figure business plan”?

Advertising strategists and business “influencers” are the new used car salesman. And they’re worse than ever.

Take this post (literally plucked from dozens when I open my Facebook Feed):

[Insert run-of-the-mill video of twenty-something using a bunch of jargon here]

Why am I sharing this?

Because I know that YOU as an entrepreneur and business owner also are working on something you’re passionate about, and you have GOALS that you want to hit.

Whether it’s to go from 6 figures to 7, or from 7 to 8… I want you to know it is DO-ABLE, and I’ve helped others DO BOTH.

So, if you want to hit the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year, send me a message and we can let you know about our different services, and setup a time to talk more on the phone if you like what we have to offer.

We’ll chat about your business, deliver some value, and see if we’re a good fit to work together.

We can’t wait to help you scale your business!

[Name removed to protect the not-so-innocent]

The post Take Your Spammy Seven-Figure Business Plan And Shove It appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A {grow} Community Week contribution by Leo Widrich

It seems that every web marketer is obsessed with traffic. Massive traffic.  But as I’ve become immersed in the social web, is it just me, or does that just ring kind of hollow? I have this uneasy feeling I have been unable to shake off.

What is traffic?

How does it support GOALS?

Does traffic always mean LEADS?

Are leads always the right goal to shoot for? If I’m a blogger, do I want leads?

Isn’t it all semantics?

So some call it traffic but really, we’re talking about people. Some call it leads … but isn’t it really conversations. Might that be even better than a lead?

I believe that taking a strong standpoint on what you are trying to achieve with your business starts with the words you use. They shape your philosophy and vision and are the doors to your future ideas.

Saying “guys, let’s seriously try and get traffic to our site, so we can increase the leads” sounds fundamentally different than saying “is there a way we can reach out to more people in our niche and start conversations with them?”

Yes, eventually, they are trying to achieve the same thing. Only the techniques and manners to achieve their goals will be different. And I am making a bold bet here: The results will be too.

What’s your business attitude?

Deciding the fundamental attitude toward your specific market starts with the very attitude you are taking toward people.

And I believe that especially on the level of social platforms, more of a “people and conversation” focus can make or break a campaign and a whole social media presence.

This can’t be forced into anyone’s head from one day to the next. It is a complete new way of thinking and looking at things online.

People are a lot more fun than traffic

What I am grateful for is that it is finally possible to take the “social” in media very serious. Finally we can just talk to people in our niche, without hard selling and pushing and build relationships the old-fashioned way.

If you really have the values for people and conversations at your very heart and not only on your lips, I believe this gives you the biggest success possible: to have fun and enjoy yourself whilst you are doing it all.

Talking to people sounds a lot more fun to me than generating traffic!

So how do you this makes a difference in how you approach your market?

Leo Widrich is the Co-Founder of BufferApp a new Twitter Tool to make publishing tweets easy without flooding your followers. (He blogs Twitter tips here.)

The post People are a lot more fun than traffic appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.