Beyond Channels: How AI is reshaping consumer discovery and the future of marketing

For two decades, marketers obsessed over one question: How do I rank on Google? Today, a new question is beginning to dominate boardroom conversations: How do I become the answer inside ChatGPT and other large language models?

Whether it is asking ChatGPT to recommend the best health supplement, suggest an energy-efficient appliance or plan a long weekend, consumers are increasingly turning to AI platforms for advice before making decisions. That shift is forcing marketers to rethink not just where they advertise, but how their brands are represented in an AI-driven ecosystem.

These changing consumer habits were at the centre of discussions at CereOne Media's Beyond Channels 2026, where marketing leaders from sectors ranging from FMCG and aviation to telecom, consumer electronics and ad-tech explored how AI is reshaping brand building.

The transformation extends far beyond consumer search. Gérald Sauvageon, Senior Director, Growth and Emerging Markets at FreeWheel, a Comcast company, said the advertising industry is entering its next major AI-driven evolution. From personalisation in the 1990s to audience targeting in the social media era, marketing has now entered the age of generative AI, where campaigns can adapt in real time and advertising workflows are becoming increasingly automated. By embedding AI across planning, optimisation and media transactions, he said, the goal is to make advertising more efficient, transparent and scalable in an increasingly connected video ecosystem.

For CereOne, that shift represents more than an operational improvement—it marks the emergence of an entirely new consumer acquisition channel.

"We are building a full-funnel AI platform that helps brands leverage AI as a channel for growth," said Rajesh Gouri, AI Lead at CereOne Media. "The platform covers the entire consumer journey, from discovery to purchase, while enabling brands to track how they are performing across large language models."

For marketers, AI is also changing the way campaigns are conceived, executed and refined.

For marketers, AI is also changing the way campaigns are conceived, executed and refined. Kumar Deb Sinha, Director of Marketing Operations – APAC & MEA at Haleon, said brands can no longer afford to treat AI as an experimental tool. "If a brand doesn't feature on AI today, it stands to lose business," he said, while adding that organisations are still learning how to connect the various AI capabilities across functions to unlock their full potential.

That challenge extends beyond visibility to measurement. Prabhvir Sahmey, Founder and CEO of Stratpulse Techlab, said discoverability on large language models is becoming increasingly important for brands, but the industry is still debating how to quantify its impact. As AI adoption accelerates across functions, he added, the cost of the technology itself is likely to become a core business expense rather than a standalone marketing investment.

Shaiphali Galhotra, who leads digital marketing for Instax, said the company is using AI on its direct-to-consumer platform to identify where customers drop off during the purchase journey and recommend improvements to the website. It is also experimenting with agentic AI to guide users through the buying process, while AI-generated images, videos and performance analysis now account for nearly 35% of its creative output.

Kanika Anand, General Manager – Marketing at Airtel, said AI has become integral to everyday marketing functions, helping teams with strategy, research, presentations and creative production. The ability to rapidly generate and test content has improved campaign performance, she said. "Earlier, we would create about five creatives in a month. Today, we're producing five in a week." The next challenge, she added, is connecting AI systems across functions instead of having teams work in isolated silos.

Looking ahead, CereOne is aiming to take that integration much further. Anand Makhija, VP – Operations & Strategy, CereOne Media, said the company is already using AI to optimise media planning and campaign performance, while working towards an end-to-end AI stack where everything from campaign ideation and content creation to execution, reporting and finance workflows can be managed seamlessly. Platforms like FreeWheel, Yahoo DSP & Vistar Media who we represent in India, too have AI at the core of their solutions said Anand.

For Shradha Agarwal, Co-founder and Global CEO of Grapes, the industry's next challenge is not adopting more AI tools but connecting them. She described orchestrated AI as the future of marketing, where strategy, creative, media and measurement function as one integrated system. Just as the internet eventually became the foundation of every digital business, she argued, AI will become the starting point for every marketing process.

The shift is already evident in the way consumers interact with brands. "Earlier, people searched using keywords. Today, they ask very specific questions," said Amit Garg, Head of Marketing at Dabur. "Instead of looking for a product category, they ask which product is best suited for them. That's changing how brands have to think about visibility."

The implications are particularly significant for industries where purchase decisions begin with planning and research. "If someone has a long weekend and a budget in mind, they are increasingly asking ChatGPT to plan the trip for them," said Karan Sharma, Lead Data Scientist and Applied AI at IndiGo. "If that is where the consumer begins the journey, brands need to be there."

Some companies have already begun preparing for that shift. Amit Chaudhary, DGM – Head of Growth and Digital at Orient Electric, said the company has developed an in-house system to monitor how its brands appear across AI platforms, recognising that AI assistants are increasingly becoming the starting point for product discovery.

The conversations at Beyond Channels 2026 underscored that AI is no longer simply another marketing tool. It is reshaping how consumers discover brands, how marketers build campaigns and how advertising itself is bought and delivered. As AI assistants become the starting point for more consumer decisions, the challenge for brands will no longer be just to rank in search results, but to ensure they are the answer when those conversations begin.