AI is coming for your content strategy
Does your brand have a game plan? + Brand strategy interview with Chris Danton
When was the last time you enjoyed researching a purchase online?
These days, we're all forced to pick our poison: becoming the Google tab hoarder drowning in comparisons and best-of lists, the social media researcher endlessly saving tagged photos and review posts, the remarketing ad target who finally breaks after weeks of being stalked by the same ad, or the Amazon scrutinizer relentlessly combing through potentially fake reviews.
This seems to be the accepted cost of being an 'informed consumer' in the digital age.
But as the noise gets louder and the options more endless, here's a thought experiment: if someone offered to cut your online shopping research time in half (or more) would you take that deal?
Because that's exactly what AI shopping assistants are promising. And early adopters are already taking them up on it.
Happy Monday, nerds! ;-)
Lots of new faces here - welcome to The Stories We Sell Ourselves. I'm Arriane, and this newsletter explores brand strategy and culture through the lens of consumerism.
Thank you for reading and sharing my last piece on 2025 predictions; I know a lot of you found me through the piece below:
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If you're new here: this isn't your typical quick-hits newsletter (plenty of other Substacks do those brilliantly). Instead, I focus on deep dives, brand strategy, and cultural analysis.
Today we're examining AI shopping assistants--there's strategy and tactics, yes, but even if AI shopping assistants aren't relevant to your brand (right now), stick around. What we're really unpacking is what this tells us about our fraught relationship with choice, trust, and digital overwhelm.
But first, a question/poll to get to know all of you: Which industry vertical do you work in? (I’m limited to 5 choices on the poll, so if I you don’t see your industry below, let me know in the comments!)
I also started experimenting with subscriber chats, so please don’t hesitate to chime in there, too. Alright—let’s get to it.
Death By a Thousand (Browser) Tabs
I spent way too many hours shopping for our vacuum cleaner. Browser tabs multiplying like rabbits: product specs, review videos, Wirecutter, Reddit threads, price comparisons. Two hours in, I had more information but felt less certain than when I started.
This is what shopping has become today: a part-time research project for even relatively simple purchases. And even then, you might still get something quite mid in quality, or just plain shitty.
A recap of a few things that have led us to this moment:
🛒 The pandemic normalized online shopping for virtually everything, from groceries to furniture
🏬 The collapse of traditional retail accelerated the shift to digital discovery
📲 Social media has evolved from a place to share experiences to an endless shopping feed
🛍️ The direct-to-consumer (DTC) tactics that once felt premium have become ubiquitous
🙈 Companies like Temu have been coming in swinging, spending millions of dollars in ads/partnerships to get the American market to “shop like a billionaire” (aka buy TONS of product at basement prices but play Russian roulette with what you’re getting)
E-commerce is chaotic. Online shopping has become exhausting. And of course, tech companies are racing to capitalize on* (or more accurately, profit off of) this moment.
Enter: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Amazon's Rufus, Google Lens, Gemini, Meta's who-knows-what—they're betting billions that AI shopping assistants will be the next big profit center.
There are some early signals for sure, but rather than blindly jump on the bandwagon or rush to prescribe solutions, I'm interested in tracing the breadcrumbs of how we got here, and ponder questions that this can raise for anyone thinking about their brand's future.
After all, the tricky (and exhilarating) part of brand strategy for me has always been this: deciding which early signals to pay attention to based on your values and goals, then figuring out where to place your bets. So many baskets, so little eggs/time/budget/brain cells, am I right?
(*A quick note: I'm focusing specifically on consumer behavior and brand strategy in this newsletter. The broader implications of AI—environmental impact, ethics, labor concerns—are their own Pandora's box that deserves more space & subject area expertise than this newsletter can give them.)
A.I. is Here to Help (…You Spend Money)
Let's try something.
Open ChatGPT or Perplexity and type this exact prompt: 'Give me 3 product recommendations and links for a moisturizer.' But don't stop there—add a sentence about yourself: your age, where you live, your skin type and issues, which other brands have failed you.
Prompt: "Give me 3 product recommendations and links for a moisturizer. My skin type is _____. The weather where I live is _____. I usually prefer ______. Previous products I tried before and didn't like are _____. Provide links and prices."When I did this, telling it about my combination skin, humid environment woes, preferred ingredients, and previous disappointments with a few brands (plus my personal bias toward Asian beauty brands), ChatGPT immediately suggested Belif, Beauty of Joseon, and CosRX. It also explained, with surprising specificity, why each would work for my concerns.
Not bad, because these weren't obscure or scammy recommendations—they're established brands I already know and trust. Instead of opening twenty tabs, 6 best-of articles, or falling down a Reddit rabbit hole, I just had to decide if I wanted to spend $32, $17, or $38.
I've tried this exercise with other product categories too, with varying results.
For example, looking for petite-friendly pants required way more back-and-forth—though I'm not sure if that's because of AI's limitations or just the perpetually limited options for petite sizing in general. *shakes fist*
And then, when I searched for a 3-seater couch that is stain-resistant, has washable covers, and good reviews—it recommended products from, in this order: Anabei, Pottery Barn, and IKEA. This is concerning to me, because Anabei is not really a brand I’d associate with having genuine good reviews (they seem to be a white-label company that spends a lot on marketing, ads, TikTok seeding, and SEO). You HAVE to watch the deinfluencing video below.
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It’ll be interesting to see what this whole shift might mean for how we discover and buy things in the future, especially as they continue to improve on and heavily market this shopping feature. (In November 2024, Perplexity launched its in-platform service called Shop With Pro, where you can store your payment details and buy the item without once going to the product’s website.)
To help make sense of this—and what it might mean for everything from brand strategy to retail's future—I spoke with the ever insightful Chris Danton.
“Throw Out Your Websites”: An Expert Q&A
While the rest of us were lamenting about/rolling our eyes at/secretly using ChatGPT, Chris Danton was the first one I saw on Substack who saw AI's looming disruption of search and product discovery.
Danton runs Good Thinking, one of the sharpest brand newsletters on Substack, and is the co-founder of IN GOOD CO, a B-Corp-certified agency that works with the likes of Nike, Starbucks, Pinterest, Uniqlo, and Zappos. I love and trust her perspective on so many things, so I asked her some questions on this topic. (Full interview below.)
She told me about the weekend that changed everything: After spending time with an AI-obsessed friend, she said she stopped using Google entirely. "It feels borderline insane to me to search there anymore," she says, citing that ChatGPT gives her the answers she needs in a format that’s way more useful.
Our Q&A below is chock-full of thought-provoking insights (that only true brand nerds would read in full and appreciate). If what she's seeing plays out, AI won't be just another tool or channel—it'll transform the core mechanics of how we shop online.
Read on and let's discuss in the comments.
Arriane: You're predicting a massive shift in the traditional online shopping journey, particularly how people discover and buy products. You even said “throw out your website”—which is a strong statement if I’ve ever seen one. Tell me more.
Chris: The thing is, all purchases will happen in-platform soon. People will only go to your site for validation or curiosity, if at all.
I truly could see the good old website as we know it disappearing, getting replaced with something more akin to an inspiration and storytelling directory for AI to parse. It will be a balance between AI-optimized content and stuff that appeals to actual humans.
Arriane: In this AI-mediated future, how will brands tell their stories and showcase their products?
Chris: The AI's not linking out the way Google has for the last decade. You'll be given options with Perplexity, ChatGPT, etc, and you'll click 'buy' there. That said, it will obviously scrape your site for what it needs to justify its recommendation.
It knows to sell you a Burberry trench because there are rich videos telling it why this trench is superior. It knows your skin tone, so it's only going to show you options for brands that truly have that selection. It knows your home's aesthetic, so it's pre-filtering for you.
Arriane: You emphasized content and storytelling a lot. What this mean for content strategy for brands?
Chris: What will be interesting is what happens when every brand is faced with creating this insane amount of deeply informative content on every product.
I suspect that many will turn to AI to help them make that content, but thus far the consumer perception of much of that is 'slop.' 'Slop' is not great for brand building. Once brands realize that, I think they'll invest in smarter content strategies so they don't lose the brand equity they've worked so hard to build.
AI learns from everything you do, in a literal flash. Every partnership, collab, influencer post, and most importantly rich, storytelling content will give it what it needs to succeed in its task. And the more clear it is who your brand is for, the better. Even if you have many of those personas, it will be able to figure that out.
Arriane: What changes do you anticipate in how brands present themselves visually? Especially for very vibe-y companies that have built their identity on careful aesthetic/design control?
Chris:
We might see the death of the e-comm photo. Do you want your products shown silhouetted on white or a video clip with a mood? Clear, clean pics won't die completely, but their role and style will change for sure.
Likely, many brands will partner with platforms to have in-app stores where they have more control over what you see.
Your general brand awareness is going to play a bigger role, so campaigns will matter more. If you’re given 2-3 reccs to choose from, what’s the tipping point? How well you know, trust, and already like the brand.
IRL retail could matter more. There is no place better than a brand-owned store to control brand experience. Not to mention, I’ve predicted that we’ll see a return to craving in-person, human-first experiences.
Arriane: What challenges do newer brands face when competing with established names in this AI-driven landscape?
Chris: The first stop on this train is: to start building that legacy. Trust will be key.
Think customer review strategies, domain authority, expert endorsements, certifications, clear and well-crafted copy, customer experience consistency, and overall brand consistency.
And make sure to position your brand alongside things/brands/experiences you want the AI to learn from.
Arriane: How sophisticated is AI's understanding of brand relationships becoming?
Chris: Danielle Greenberg is a good friend but also an AI-power user. She says “AI is focused on Intent Understanding, it focuses on semantic understanding, context, and relationship mapping between entities.”
For example, if AI sees ‘Alex Mill partners with Levi's,’ it doesn't just index this as keywords (like SEO) but understands the business relationship and brand positioning implications. If before the goal was to be found/discovered, now companies need to make sure they are understood and trusted by AI systems in a way that aligns with genuine brand value and customer experience.
Arriane: How is the actual search process evolving?
Chris: How we search is completely changing. The ‘kids’ are already using voice search, and Google Lens already gets 10 billion uses a month.
In the next 2-3 years, I predict the majority of people will use Generative AI for search. And brands that have started investing here are also seeing the results.
Also, AI search has a memory. This will be a pivotal shift. It's mapping not just relationships between products on a site, but products you've bought on other sites, and past purchases in general.
I have friends who are already training their AIs to know their kids’ preferences and needs for grocery shopping. That will be the norm soon, across all categories.
Arriane: For brands still hesitant about this transformation, what would you say about the timeline for adoption?
Chris: The signals are everywhere. The numbers don’t lie. Sure there will be a catch-up period, but it won’t be long. Look at how long it took brands to adopt Instagram compared to how quickly they adopted TikTok. Once the consumer expectation was there, brands needed to be, too.
This will be just as pressing because it's where sales will happen. If it's going to make or break their revenue, brands will figure it out.
A Devil's Advocate Enters the Chat
Whew. That was a lot to unpack.
It really feels like we’re at the age of marketing to the machine, whether we like it or not.
Okay, now—let me play devil's advocate and cite some different perspectives. (And full disclosure - in an ideal world where this Substack isn't my passion project squeezed between a job and a toddler, I would've loved to interview more industry folks about this. But alas!).
Here's what the Vogue Business & US youth culture agency Archival report on Gen Z and millennial buying behavior found:
"The research phase is crucial for brand trust: 70 per cent of Gen Zs and 69 per cent of millennials only trust a brand after carrying out their own research.
And 56 per cent of Gen Zs said "brands often lie about their products/services", compared with 47 per cent of millennials. Comments sections are also a key area of the research phase."
The report also says, "In fact, young people are increasingly using social media as a search engine, to research products they've seen online or IRL and hear from others about the item's fit, quality, packaging and more."
This makes me wonder: What will be the difference in AI-search behavior between younger and older people? Which industries will shift last, i.e. Will certain sectors (like fashion and beauty) remain tied to social media discovery longer than others?
There's another wrinkle here: platforms like ChatGPT are built on large language models (LLMs), which are never 100% accurate or truthful.
For these chatbots and platforms, "Being right isn't the goal, at least not now; sounding right is. For any particular query, there are many more answers that sound right than answers that are true.” Amanda Mull writes in The Atlantic.
So what all this assumes is that we all have the media literacy and critical thinking to look beyond cognitive heuristics. Unfortunately, as humans have proven time and time again, that's not always the case.
Sigh.
But resistance seems... futile. It's merely the newest chapter in our ongoing saga of digital burnout and consumer complicity—we're all stumbling forward together.
It reminds me of watching TikTok's rise in 2020.
Did I personally like how the For You Page exacerbated digital fatigue and built an entire profit ecosystem around it?
Hell no.
But when that's where the audience went, and that's where the money followed—did every other platform and business have to go there, too?
100% yes, unfortunately.
And so the wheel turns. We fall in line, while doing whatever mental gymnastics necessary to justify why we're still in this line of work. (You see now why I called this newsletter The Stories We SELL OURSELVES?! Surprise! You’re actually inside my existential crisis.)
Let me now pass the mic on to you: What in the interview gave you pause? What questions are you now mulling on? Leave a comment or restack/share this post with your own perspectives.
After spending weeks thinking about this, testing different AI tools, and talking to other brand nerds, I have more thoughts.
If you’re interested to pick through my brain a bit more and get more tactical—behind the paywall, I'm opening up my strategy notes to share:
Which content approaches are becoming more (and less) valuable as AI reshapes product discovery
What questions I’d ask my clients if I were to do a brand audit of current channels for AI-readiness
Other tactical adjustments to social, content, influencer, physical activations
An example/case study of a brand doing hyper-specific personas well
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