Customers are at risk of being replaced as the owner of the buying journey as AI agents become increasingly more capable.
Project Hatch, recently renamed Muse, was launched in September to enable Meta customers to complete the buying journey with a personal AI agent on the frontline.
As this activity grows, marketers could find that familiar signals such as clicks and traffic might, more often than not, reflect an agent’s actions rather than customer intent.
In conversation with CX Today, Jon Ziglar, CEO of Acoustic, claims that marketers may only have months left to distinguish consumer actions from AI activity.
“I think how humans interact on a purchase basis is going to be slowed down by human trust and adoption rather than by the technology's capabilities.”
Why You Should Prepare For An Invisible Shift
The pace at which AI agents are moving from tools that answer questions to systems that can act on a consumer’s behalf is increasing at an overwhelming rate, with many now expected to complete tasks online with limited human involvement.
With the introduction of low-cost personal agents, customers losing control over their own journeys becomes more likely.
“If you'd looked a year ago at where and how AI was viewed versus today, you would not even believe it,” Ziglar acknowledges.
“Your buyer is a human and assisted by an AI or it's an AI bot altogether.”
Because of this, marketers have limited time to understand how these systems could permanently change the journey.
An eventual likelihood is AI agents could become intermediaries between brands and customers, performing research and return a shortlist or recommendation.
This creates a problem for marketers using established digital metrics as they may no longer indicate human interest.
If a website visit or product view instead represents an agent gathering information rather than customer activity, this data will become less useful when viewed in isolation.
Ziglar notes:
“Things like traffic are going to be less reliable.”
Whilst the traditional customer journey will disappear immediately, indications of consumer trust and adoption will determine how quickly agent-led purchasing becomes routine.
However, with the underlying technology developing faster than brands can comprehend, marketing teams will need to prepare for when widespread adoption makes the measurement problem unavoidable.
