There are numerous uses for AI in 2026 between saving time with search results or helping you craft an important email. AI is a unique tool that for many has made a major impact on daily life. However, many people continue to question how it can be used in daily life.
For business owners, its use may seem complicated. While AI is an enticing option to complete small tasks, more notably, the arrival of AI has shifted the digital marketing world in some unique ways.
Now, instead of customers discovering a business with a search result, AI has reshaped these results to offer refined information that highlights the information that is found in such search results. As a result, many businesses will need to adjust their marketing efforts to speak to this new innovation, ensuring that when customers are searching for your services, they not only appear in online search results but also in AI-focused search results.
The refinement of AI search curation
Take a quick look at your favorite search engine and simply pop in a topic related to your business. At one point, search results were prominently displayed with a long list of different websites. Today, there is an AI summary available at the top of all these search results.
This is the latest evolution of search engines, where an AI summary is prominently displayed related to your search.
For business owners, being visible online is one part of the digital marketing puzzle, where arriving in that AI summary remains just as important as arriving in specific search results.
Adjusting your marketing efforts to cater to AI searches
Many marketing agencies have had to pivot their efforts to cater to the arrival of AI-focused search results. While AI takes a read of existing search results, there are more things that can be done to ensure your business appears in these AI summaries.
Historically, agencies have published relevant content in order to attract the attention of a specific audience. This is often referred to generally as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or digital marketing, but it really is simple storytelling catered to a targeted audience.
In today’s world, these stories have to be re-shaped to cater to the arrival of AI searches. Now, skilled marketers are looking to craft stories that feed into AI, with things like questions and answers, short lists, and step-by-step guides in an effort to appear in these AI summaries. Rather than using AI as a crutch, marketers are using their own human intelligence to ensure that content is picked up by AI, ultimately helping your business appear in these summaries we mentioned earlier.
The power of storytelling
The marketing element behind AI remains powerful, but it remains just another step in the overall landscape of online search. Business leaders can turn to agencies to help them navigate this hurdle while ensuring the stories they tell appear in both search results and AI summaries.
Still, the fundamentals of digital marketing remain the same, in that great storytelling remains the key to attracting specific audiences that are interested in your products and services. What steps have you taken as a business leader in this AI-focused marketing world?
This content is provided for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. AFP editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.
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