Agents, Not Algorithms: The Next Battleground for Brand Discovery

We’re entering a stage where the SEO strategies we’ve known and loved, which have been pointed at LLMs, are no longer enough. AI agents have entered the chat, and they’re fast becoming the digital-facing influencers shaping how information is gathered and how decisions are made.

Instead of a buyer typing in a query and skimming results, their AI assistant will ask the questions, evaluate the answers, and even recommend next steps. That changes everything.

And here’s the kicker: nearly 80% of companies say they’re already using gen AI, yet just as many report no material impact on earnings (McKinsey calls this the “gen AI paradox”). Why? Because copilots and chatbots—while widely deployed—are fundamentally reactive. They help with individual productivity but don’t transform business outcomes.

Agents are different. They combine autonomy, planning, memory, and integration. They don’t just generate answers; they execute, adapt, and decide. That’s why this same McKinsey report says that fewer than 10% of high-value vertical AI use cases have scaled beyond pilots. From where we sit, agents will unlock this.

The proof is already showing up based on examples in this report:

• A bank modernizing legacy apps with agents cut time and effort by more than 50%.

• A research firm expects $3M in annual savings and a 60% productivity boost by shifting from human analysts to agentic workflows.

• In customer service, reimagining processes around agents could enable up to 80% of common incidents to be resolved autonomously, reducing resolution times by 60–90%.

Net-net: That’s not incremental change. That’s redefining the playing field.

A quick reality check from Tim Sanders at G2

He is bullish on agents, and as he told CIO Dive, he believes we should keep our eyes open, “Agents are something that can perform some type of action using persistent memory and decision intelligence. None of them are fully autonomous, so anybody that tells you differently is hiding something from you.” He frames maturity on a gradient from weak (chatbots/copilots) to strong (systems of agents). We’ll get there, but we’re not there yet.  

The market signals back him up: amid “agent-washing,” Gartner estimates only about 130 of the thousands of agentic AI vendors are real and predicts over 40% of agent projects will be canceled by 2027 due to cost, unclear value, and risk.  

Translation: the technology may still be maturing, and very rapidly might I add, but brands don’t have the luxury of waiting. If agents are the new gatekeepers of discovery and decision-making, then the question becomes: how do you make sure your brand is visible, credible, and recommendable in an agent-first world?

What Brands Should Do Now

There’s plenty of content out there about the need for better GEO/AEO and the industry shift, but getting down to the brass tacks, here’s how to move from strategy to execution in the age of agents:

• Think agent-first. Ask: “Would an AI assistant recommend us?” If the answer isn’t obvious, that’s a gap.

• Action: Run regular “agent audits” by prompting tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity with your category’s top questions. Track whether your brand appears, how it’s positioned, and who shows up instead. Don’t forget to be incognito. 😎

• Double down on authority. Agents rely on signals of credibility like citations, expert voices, and entity recognition.

• Action: Publish research, data-rich reports, or customer benchmarks quarterly. Create consistent leadership commentary across media and LinkedIn to reinforce the association between your executives and your industry category.

• Test and train visibility. Just like we once tracked SEO, we now need to monitor how agents and AI platforms surface (or skip) your brand.

• Action: Use structured data and schema markup on all press releases, blogs, and resources so agents can parse and cite your content. Pair multimedia (like video) with transcripts and quotable summaries that AI can index.

• Keep content current. Stale insights make you disappear in AI’s training cycle.

• Action: Refresh FAQs, blogs, and resources every 90 days. Even a single updated proof point can keep content “alive” for AI systems.

• Build machine-readable assets. Agents scan for clarity and structure.

• Action: Create “AI-friendly” one-pagers that are concise, scannable, and formatted with clear Q&A, bullet points, and citations. Think less like marketing copy and more like source material for a digital researcher.

Zoom Out

So why aren’t more brands moving faster? Two reasons stand out. First, most B2B companies still score low on AI visibility, so it doesn’t yet feel like a burning issue internally. Second, the AI landscape is in constant flux. Definitions are shifting, vendor promises outpace reality, and leaders struggle with where to even begin.

But hesitation carries risk. McKinsey puts it bluntly: while 80% of companies are experimenting with gen AI, only 1% have mature strategies. Agents just may be the leapfrog that changes that and fast. They turn scattered pilots into scalable impact, moving from tools that respond to prompts to systems that proactively recommend, orchestrate, and execute.

The brands that adapt early will win, not just in search, but in how their stories are discovered, trusted, and acted upon. That’s exactly why we launched Marka+ at Greenough. We’re helping clients prepare for a world where agents vs. just algorithms will shape the buying journey.  

Ready or not, the question is not about whether your brand will be found; it’s about whether an agent will recommend you. We’re ready when you are!

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