For decades, marketing has focused on visibility. It bought seconds of attention, reach, impressions and clicks with one goal: to make a brand the user’s first choice. Today, however, artificial intelligence increasingly stands between brands and users, generating answers from data, context and evidence. And those answers are becoming the new shelf.

In his latest column for Marketing Magazine, Simon Cetin, founder of Retoba Lab, writes that we are entering a period in which visibility alone will no longer be enough for success. Brands will first and foremost need to be understandable. AI does not care how loud an ad is or how visually appealing it appears. What matters is whether it can clearly explain what a product is, who it is for, what problem it solves and why it is the right choice.

»Marketing once influenced decisions. Today, it first needs to enter the decision-making process. It is no longer enough to simply be visible. A brand must be understood. Where people once made choices themselves, systems now increasingly filter them. That is why clarity, not loudness, is becoming the defining advantage.«

The column also explores the future of shopping. Consumers are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence for comparisons, recommendations and decision-making, while personal assistants will soon begin making purchases on their behalf. As a result, a brand will no longer be defined only by what it says about itself, but by what systems are able to explain about it. “If you are not in the answer, you do not exist,” Cetin concludes.

»If you are not in the answer, you do not exist,« Cetin concludes.

According to Cetin, marketing is therefore taking on a new role. It no longer competes solely for user attention, but for interpretation within artificial intelligence systems that will increasingly determine which brands are considered at all.

The column was published in the print edition of Marketing Magazine, May 2026, issue no. 539.