You get cited for what others say about you as much as for what you say as a brand. Answer engines lean on the same authority signals but draw from a narrower set of sources they already trust. “I’d resist treating AEO as an independently dialable lever: citation frequency is now a lagging consequence of authority,” says Jason Huan, CMO at Endowus.
"The answer to the billion-message problem isn't another message. It's making every message relevant," says Jema Birkmeyer, VP, Strategic Accounts at Attentive.
Anthony Rotio on why experiments must become durable memory, why warehouse‑native CDPs beat stale copies, and the limits he won’t compromise to chase automation.
Downloads are no longer enough to measure app growth. Youssef Farkash, RVP, EMEA, Branch, explains why retention, attribution and long-term customer value matter more.
As discovery starts to converge with answer engines, the old challenge of creating a unified shopping experience between channels will intensify. With AI and machine learning, “the customer may simply explain what they are looking for, and let the system narrow it down,” explains Andros Tiong, Regional Director, DTC - Retail & Omni Channel SEA at ASICS Corporation.
Clicks and conversions may be easy to measure, but they do not always explain whether advertising created additional value or simply captured demand that already existed. According to Michael Shang, SVP of Technologies at StackAdapt, when outcome data enters the active media workflow, planning becomes more iterative.
Brand preference doesn’t disappear, but it splits into two audiences. The consumer still forms the preference. They decide which brands they trust enough to let an agent act for them, and that decision stays emotional and human, says Brian Kealey, Managing Director, APAC, Klaviyo.
Participation should be viewed more as an opportunity for building sustained brand equity and consumer relationships and less as an indicator, says Hira Omar Aamer, Brand Strategy Director, Sprite, Eurasia and Middle East Operating Unit, The Coca-Cola Company.
Brands need to function as a connected unit grounded in a solid customer data foundation or else they risk missing hidden signals across their organisation, says Varun Sharma, VP & Head of SAP CX – Middle East Africa, SAP.
Five years ago, a customer looking for a service typed a query, which we could bid on and measure, says Service Club CMO Michiel Das. "Today, a meaningful share of that same intent goes to an AI assistant instead. There is no query to buy and no results page to rank on. There is an answer, and you are either in it or you are not."
