In March 2025, McKinsey surveyed 1,927 U.S. consumers and found something striking: 50% were deliberately using AI-powered search engines to make buying decisions. Not as a novelty. As their primary research method.
By August, that same research firm discovered another shift. When consumers saw AI search results, 90% clicked through to the original sources. They wanted verification. They wanted the full story. AI gave them the starting point, but trust still required human proof.
This tension between automation and authenticity defines 2026. Marketers who lean too hard into AI efficiency lose audience trust. Those who ignore AI altogether lose visibility. The successful ones are finding the balance, and the data shows exactly where they’re winning.
AI Search Changed Where People Look for Answers
Half of Google’s search results now include AI-generated summaries, according to trend analysis tracking through 2025. That number is expected to hit 75% by 2028.
But here’s the interesting part: AI search isn’t replacing traditional search, it’s fragmenting it.
According to Ahrefs’ analysis of millions of search queries, AI Overviews appear for 16% of U.S. desktop searches. They show up more for informational queries and longer search phrases. They show up less for branded searches, local queries, and anything that looks transactional.
Which means brands now need to optimize for multiple discovery paths simultaneously.
The Visibility Problem
When Ahrefs tracked click behavior, they found AI Overviews reduce clicks by 34.5%. Content that used to generate traffic is now being summarized and consumed without users ever visiting the source.
But McKinsey’s research revealed the counter-trend: 44% of AI search users say it’s now their primary source of insight, ahead of traditional search engines (31%), brand websites (9%), and review sites (6%).
The volume is there. The challenge is being selected as a cited source.
How Brands Are Adapting?
McKinsey surveyed Fortune 500 CMOs in September 2025 and found only 16% are systematically tracking AI search performance. The ones who are have started treating it like a new channel with its own optimization rules.
They’re focusing on structured data, clear authorship signals, and FAQ-style content that AI can easily parse. They’re treating their own sites as a network of potential sources rather than a single destination. And they’re monitoring which content gets cited in AI responses the same way they used to track keyword rankings.
The metric that matters now isn’t just traffic, it’s citation frequency.
The volume is there. The challenge is being selected as a cited source.
The Backlash Against Generic AI Content Is Real
Between 2024 and 2025, online mentions of the term “AI slop” increased 200%, according to social listening data compiled by marketing analysts. The sentiment around low-effort AI-generated content is 82% negative.
People can tell. And they’re rejecting it.
Usage vs. Trust
Here’s the paradox: SurveyMonkey found that 50% of marketers create content with AI, and 51% use it to optimize existing content. At the same time, 65% of companies report improved SEO performance when using AI-generated content, according to the Digital Marketing Institute.
But audiences don’t trust it. A 2025 study by AllAboutAI found that only 17% of marketing professionals have received comprehensive AI training, even though 68% use AI tools regularly. The result is content that’s efficient to produce but lacking in substance.
Orbit Media’s annual blogger survey revealed the gap: 54% of content marketers use AI to generate ideas, but only 6% use it to write entire articles. The ones performing best treat AI as a research assistant, not a replacement writer.
What Audiences Actually Want?
First-hand experience. Specific examples. Personality.
The elements AI can’t replicate are exactly what audiences are craving.
Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) aren’t just ranking factors anymore. They’re audience expectations. Content without them gets dismissed, regardless of how well it’s optimized.
Employee Content Outperforms Brand Content by 8X
LinkedIn’s 2025 data shows employee-shared content receives 8 times more engagement than the same content shared by brand accounts. Not 8% more. Eight times more.
The DSMN8 Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report, which surveyed 252 program leaders, found that 61% consider employee advocacy either “extremely important” or “very important” to their organization. That’s up from previous years as brands realize traditional corporate messaging is losing effectiveness.
The Trust Gap
People trust people more than logos. Straightforward, but the numbers make it concrete.
- 76% of consumers trust content shared by individuals over brands (AdWeek)
- 84% of consumers value recommendations from friends and family above advertising (Nielsen)
- Consumers are 3X more likely to trust company employees than CEOs when sorting fact from fiction (FleishmanHillard)
- 96% of employees say posting on social media has benefited their careers (DSMN8 2025 Report)
Why This Works for B2B?
The effect is even stronger in B2B contexts. Research shows that 90% of B2B buyers are more likely to engage with salespeople viewed as industry thought leaders. When sales teams participate in employee advocacy programs, their social selling effectiveness increases dramatically.
According to LinkedIn, 78% of social sellers outperform peers who don’t use social media, and they’re 51% more likely to reach quota. Employee advocacy converts these individual efforts into a systematic advantage.
The time investment is manageable too. DSMN8’s platform data tracking 10,000 users over 12 months found employees spend an average of 22 minutes per week on advocacy activities. That’s roughly the time it takes to schedule three posts.
Third-Party Cookies Are Gone, But Personalization Isn't...
Browser tracking is restricted. Third-party cookies are deprecated. But consumer expectations for personalized experiences haven’t changed. According to SurveyMonkey’s research, 73% of marketers say AI plays a role in creating personalized customer experiences.
The solution is first-party and zero-party data, information consumers willingly share in exchange for value.
The Value Exchange
Zero-party data comes from direct customer input: preferences, goals, interests. First-party data comes from interactions: purchases, downloads, email engagement, site behavior.
Brands building personalization systems around this data are seeing results. HubSpot’s 2023 research found that segmented emails drive 30% more opens and 50% more clickthroughs than unsegmented campaigns.
The brands winning at this offer clear value in exchange: calculators, assessments, exclusive content, tools. They’re transparent about how data will be used. And they demonstrate immediate value from the personalization they deliver.
Privacy-First Personalization
The companies performing best treat privacy as a feature, not a constraint. They’re building systems that deliver personalization without surveillance, and customers are responding.
Transparency about data usage has become a competitive advantage, not just a compliance requirement.
Social Commerce Crossed $85 Billion in the U.S. Alone
U.S. social commerce sales hit $85.58 billion in 2025, according to Emarketer, growing at 19.5% year-over-year. The market will exceed $100 billion for the first time in 2026.
TikTok Shop is driving much of this growth. The platform’s U.S. sales reached $15.82 billion in 2025, up 108% from the previous year. That gives TikTok 18.2% of the total U.S. social commerce market, expected to reach 24.1% by 2027.
The In-Platform Purchase Behavior
Emarketer’s data shows 49.7% of TikTok social shoppers buy something from the platform at least once per month, more frequently than on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest.
The entire journey happens in one app: discovery, consideration, purchase, post-purchase engagement. Platforms have removed friction by enabling native checkout, saved payment methods, and creator-driven recommendations.
Over 100 million Americans made a purchase on social media in 2025, representing 46.6% of social network users. American consumers spent an average of $876 shopping on social platforms, up 18.2% from 2024, according to Capital One Shopping’s analysis.
Creator Economics
The creator economy is central to social commerce success. Research shows 78% of TikTok shoppers discover products through influencers. Branded creator collaborations have a 27% higher ad recall rate than traditional social advertising, and partnering with creators can boost view-through rates by up to 193%.
TikTok influencer marketing spending reached $2.35 billion in 2025, up 87.4% from 2024. That’s 489% faster growth than total influencer spending across all platforms.
The brands succeeding in social commerce aren’t treating it as a side channel. They’re building dedicated content strategies, establishing creator partnerships, and optimizing for in-platform conversion.
Marketing Mix Modeling Made a Comeback
With privacy restrictions limiting user-level tracking, marketing mix modeling (MMM) has returned as a primary measurement method. The approach analyzes aggregate data to understand which channels and campaigns actually drive results.
Modern MMM tools are faster and more granular than legacy systems. They provide cross-channel visibility without relying on individual user tracking.
The ROI Picture
Email marketing consistently delivers the highest ROI at 3,600%, according to Email Monday’s 2025 benchmarking study ($36 return for every $1 spent). That significantly outperforms SEO’s 200-275% return, paid advertising’s variable ROI, and social media’s engagement-focused metrics.
According to AllAboutAI’s analysis, 41% of marketers identify email as their most effective channel, well ahead of social media (16%) and paid search (16%).
But here’s the important part: these numbers only matter if you’re measuring correctly. Without proper attribution models, marketing teams make decisions based on incomplete data.
The Measurement Gap
Marketing teams using AI report 44% higher productivity, saving an average of 11 hours per week according to 2025 research. But only if they’re measuring the right things. The organizations seeing the best results combine AI adoption with clear measurement frameworks and regular testing protocols.
The Pattern Behind All Six Shifts
Each of these changes points to the same underlying trend: distribution is fragmenting, but trust is consolidating.
Consumers have more places to discover brands, more platforms to research products, and more tools to evaluate claims. That’s the fragmentation. But they’re concentrating their trust in fewer sources: AI-verified information, employee recommendations, creator endorsements, first-hand experiences.
The marketing strategies working in 2026 address both sides. They optimize for AI discovery while maintaining human authenticity. They build employee advocacy programs alongside traditional brand campaigns. They enable social commerce while strengthening email performance.
The Duke University CMO Survey, which polls VP-level and higher marketing leaders, found that generative AI adoption increased 116% year-over-year. But the same survey shows marketing budgets remain flat at 7.7% of company revenue. Teams aren’t getting more resources. They’re reallocating existing ones toward what’s actually working.
The brands pulling ahead are the ones treating these shifts as connected rather than separate. They’re not chasing individual tactics. They’re building integrated systems that address how customer behavior has fundamentally changed.
Start with measurement. Understand which channels actually drive results for your specific audience. Build from there. The data will show you exactly where to invest next. If you need help, you can always contact W3 Solved to increase your online visibility
