AI‑Powered Search & Conversational Commerce
Marketing Playbook for Mid‑2025
The battleground has shifted
Conversational AI now owns the moment of intent:
- Google Search — AI Mode opens to all U.S. Labs users and edges into the main results tab. Overviews already reach 1 billion+ peosple and, powered by Gemini 2.0, resolve multi‑step plans in one go. (blog.google)
- ChatGPT “Shopper Mode” rolls out globally to Free, Plus & Pro tiers—no sign‑in needed—serving organic, ad‑free product cards with images, prices and reviews. (Reuters, WIRED)
- Microsoft Copilot Ads place text, Shopping‑feed and Multimedia creatives directly inside the chat pane, delivering +69 % CTR and +76 % conversion versus classic search placements. (about.ads.microsoft.com)
Why it matters: Attention is migrating from blue links to AI answers. Brands that supply rich, trustworthy data now will lock in visibility before rivals can react.
Platform snapshots & your next best move
| Ecosystem | What just launched | Do this next | Hidden risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Mode | Task‑resumption panel, visual product/venue cards; Gemini 2.0 reasoning. | 1 Refresh product schema & stock feeds for Shopping Graph.
2 Rewrite FAQs in conversational, comparison‑friendly style. |
Late or thin data ⇒ models favour competitors. |
| ChatGPT Shopper | Global, memory‑based picks; no paid placements (yet). | Seed expert reviews & Reddit buzz; upload granular specs via Merchant feeds. | Future affiliate model could commoditise mid‑funnel publishers. |
| Copilot Ads | Rich‑media ads in chat; 1.7× CTR uplift. (about.ads.microsoft.com) | Shift budget to Performance Max; expand image & copy assets for AI assembly. | Sparse asset libraries throttle relevance. |
Momentum indicators from Microsoft’s marketing guide
- 68 % of consumers already use generative AI to answer questions, and 90 million expect it to be their primary search tool by 2027.
- Visual or Multimedia ads inside Copilot drive 1.7× higher CTR than traditional search ads. (Financial Times)
- Marketers gain a 70 % productivity boost when Copilot automates routine campaign tasks. (WIRED)
Other players to watch
- Perplexity AI iterates weekly—multimodal uploads, location filters, “Deep Research” one‑click, and pilots sponsored follow‑up questions. (Reuters)
Your 90‑day action sprint
- Data hygiene at speed — Audit feeds, schema, IndexNow pings; target < 30 min latency from price change to crawl.
- Conversational copy — Flip top 50 pages into Q&A blocks and comparison tables the models can quote verbatim.
- Review surge — Incentivise video or “pros‑and‑cons” reviews on expert sites and Reddit‑style forums.
- AI shelf monitoring — Run weekly prompts in AI Mode, Copilot and ChatGPT; track share‑of‑answer.
- Asset diversity — Minimum 10 images & 5 text variants per SKU for Performance Max and Multimedia Ads.
- Affiliate pilots — Position flagship SKUs for OpenAI’s upcoming affiliate experiments before paid norms settle.
Strategic upside for the C‑suite
- Revenue — Capture incremental sales from “zero‑click” chat journeys.
- Authority — Being quoted inside answers conveys trust money can’t buy.
- Cost — Organic AI presence cushions CPC inflation in legacy search.
- Defensibility — Data fed today becomes tomorrow’s embedded model memory—speed is your moat.
References
- Google Search Blog, “New ways to interact with information in AI Mode,” 1 May 2025. (about.ads.microsoft.com)
- Wired, “OpenAI Adds Shopping to ChatGPT,” 28 Apr 2025.
- Reuters, “OpenAI rolls out new shopping features with ChatGPT,” 28 Apr 2025. (Financial Times)
- Microsoft Advertising Blog, “Transforming audience engagement with generative AI,” Oct 2024.
- A Marketer’s Guide to Chatbots & Agents (Microsoft PDF), 2025 edition.
- Financial Times, “Perplexity in talks with top brands on ads model,” Sep 2024.