The New Reality of Decision Making
In 1898, lightbulbs were a relatively new technology and horse-drawn carriages ruled the streets. Victoria was still Queen of England.
The same year, the AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) marketing formula was first published. Nearly 130 years later, the dominant operational standard of marketing still descends from this linear, Victorian-era model.
We’ve updated the tactics, but we’re still using the same map.
It’s a comforting idea to cling to: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But the uncomfortable truth is that it’s now starting to break.
Modern marketing has evolved to acknowledge the ‘messy middle’ of the digital era, the continuous cycles of exploration and evaluation we loop to expand and narrow options to reach a purchase decision.¹
However, a fundamental problem remains: these models assume a human is on the other side. Now, that line is being intercepted.
As artificial intelligence plays an ever more significant role in daily life, it has come to influence the way people think, make decisions, and behave. More and more, consumers are using AI to discover, compare and buy products and services.
In fact, a McKinsey study from August 2025 showed that nearly half of consumers are most likely to use AI when researching or making decisions related to a category, brand, product or service.²
These behavioral shifts represent a fundamental transformation of the consumer-brand relationship, reshaping how consumers discover and engage with entire categories and brands, how they choose to spend their money, and how loyalty is built.
Naturally this shift comes with totally new opportunities and risks, and it stands to impact $750bn in revenue by 2028.³
Today, we enter an era of agentic AI - where artificially intelligent systems make decisions on behalf of the user.
As AI becomes a more active player in consumer-brand dynamics, the landscape for insight and marketing teams grows ever more complex; and the stakes are enormous. Research estimates that AI agents could mediate $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030.⁴
In a world where AI is starting to call the shots on behalf of humans, we can no longer rely on strategy rooted in traditional decision-making frameworks.
When major shifts happen, there is hype and noise. Most organizations hesitate, freeze and play it safe by referring back to old playbooks.
Those that leverage ongoing intelligence to make sense of what’s changing and channel this disruption into strategic momentum will gain competitive advantage in this new economy.
References
1. Google (2020). Decoding Decisions.
2. McKinsey (2025). New front door to the internet: Winning in the age of AI search
3. McKinsey (2025). New front door to the internet: Winning in the age of AI search
4. McKinsey (2026). The automation curve in agentic commerce.
