AI is changing how customers research a purchase. Our new report explains why influence marketing should help people understand a brand as well as notice it.
Somewhere, a potential customer is asking an AI assistant which product to buy. Whose explanation of your product is that assistant going to find?
Your website might be one source. A reviewer, retailer or creator might be another. The answer may compare your product with something else and help the customer form a shortlist before they visit either company’s website.
That is the question behind The 2027 Influence Imperative, our new Falls+Partners report. My recommendation is simple: keep using influence marketing to build awareness, but give creator partnerships another purpose. Ask them to answer the real questions people have before they choose.
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Watch or listen to Winfluence Episode 346
Jason Falls explains the recommendation behind The 2027 Influence Imperative: give creator partnerships a second job helping people choose.
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Why should influencer marketing be part of AI search planning?
Imagine shopping for a nugget ice maker. You want to know whether it will fit under your cabinets, how much cleaning it needs and what it is like to use when friends come over.
A beautiful kitchen photo might get your attention. A creator who measures the space and shows the cleaning routine helps you decide. That demonstration has value to the person watching, and it may also become a source an AI tool can find when answering a similar question.
You may hear this called answer engine optimization, or AEO. In plain English, it means helping a brand appear accurately in AI-generated answers. Agentic search goes further, allowing an assistant to carry out more of the research and help someone move toward a decision. Google explains that its AI search features may issue several related searches to build an answer. [1]
Your website is essential. It should not be alone.
Your own website should get the facts right: the product, the model, the service and the next step. Customers also want another perspective. Someone who has used the product or understands the category can explain what the facts mean in real life.
Early research supports paying attention to those outside explanations. AirOps studied more than 21,000 brand mentions in AI answers to commercial discovery questions. Mentions supported by outside domains were about six and a half times as common as those supported by a brand’s own website in that study. It was largely business-software research, not a forecast for every industry. [2]
Stacker and Scrunch reported additional AI visibility from distributing stories through other publishers. Later separately reports a meaningful role for creator citations in its internal research. Those studies measure different things. They do not establish that hiring a creator always changes an answer more than improving a website. [3] [4]
Profound’s broader research also finds company websites are an important source. Its category includes competitors and related companies, not only the brand a customer asks about. [5] Build a useful website and a credible conversation around it.
What would a creator program actually look like?
Choose one product or service. Collect a dozen questions from customer service, sales calls, reviews and online conversations. Then find about six people who have the experience to answer them credibly.
Ask each person to make three short videos, each answering one question. That gives you 18 useful explanations. Different people can cover different questions; more than one person can test the concerns that matter most. Add longer demonstrations where the subject needs them.
Six is our suggested starting point, not a requirement from an AI platform. Adjust it to the product, budget and what you learn. YouTube is a sensible first test because its conversational search can use both short and longer videos. Other channels should follow the customer and the sources that appear in relevant searches. [6]
Name the exact product. Answer directly. Show the experience supporting the answer. Use clear titles, accurate captions and a written explanation. Disclose paid partnerships and let creators retain their honest opinions.
The question changes with the business
The report uses Kentucky-relevant examples to make the approach tangible. An equestrian creator could explain boot fit using Ariat as an example. An adult bartender could demonstrate a Woodford Reserve cocktail. A financial educator could explain a budgeting task, and a qualified health professional could help someone understand what to ask about care.
Our GE Appliances examples come from the teams Falls+Partners currently supports: GE Profile, Air & Water and Recreational Living. A household creator could show a refrigerator feature in an ordinary grocery routine. An RV specialist could explain replacement fit. Partners such as eTrailer can add deeper videos, transcripts and answers.
These are proposed applications, not claims of measured AI-search success for those brands. The report explains the evidence and the limits alongside the ideas.
How do you know whether it is helping?
Before publishing, ask the customer questions in several AI tools and save the answers and their sources. Repeat the questions after the content is available. Look for more accurate descriptions, use of the new material as a source and appropriate recommendations.
Keep measuring views, engagement, website visits and customer inquiries. A citation is not automatically a recommendation, and a recommendation does not establish sales impact. Repeated observations are more useful than one exciting screenshot.
The report includes a practical ninety-day starting plan. It brings customer listening, creator assignments, brand information and measurement into the same conversation.
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Get the free PDF at jasonfalls.co/influenceimperative.
If you would like help putting the ideas to work, you can request a conversation with Falls+Partners when you download.