Did AI kill the marketing funnel?

A look into AI and the influence on the traditional marketing funnel, as part of our Embrace AI newsletter series.

AI-led journeys are creating more zero-click experiences in search and discovery, and it’s making the traditional funnel feel a bit… wobbly. So, did AI kill the marketing funnel?

The short answer is: nope. AI hasn’t killed the funnel, but it has exposed limitations and how it should adapt.

The new funnel journey

The traditional funnel assumed that buyers progressed through predictable stages that could be influenced and measured channel by channel. In reality, modern discovery is far less linear. Buyers now form opinions inside AI platforms, validate expertise across social networks and then return through branded search long before measurable intent appears in analytics dashboards. Talk about attribution woes.

Generative AI and AI overviews have accelerated this compression with the way information is summarised before a website is visited. Recommendations are shaped by structured content and third party authority signals that many organisations aren't actively managing.

What does this mean?

This creates huge risk for brands that continue to optimise in silos. Treating SEO, content, PR and AI visibility as separate initiatives weakens overall performance – something that is both true before, but even more so now.

AI systems rely on the same technical foundations, authority signals, and external validation that drive traditional search rankings. The distinction between SEO and AI optimisation is itself becoming more artificial.

We're seeing leading organisations shift their focus from channel performance to structured visibility.

What must change

The big priority is integration. Technical clarity ensures content can be interpreted correctly. Clear brand positioning strengthens topic ownership, and external recognition across credible platforms reinforces trust. Together, these elements increase both organic performance and inclusion within AI-generated responses.

Measurement must evolve as well. Driven by even more fragmented discovery, brand demand often becomes the clearest signal that the full marketing mix is working. More proof of the redistribution of the marketing funnel, rather than its death by AI.

The strategic response (and our advice) is not to abandon existing disciplines, but to align them around unified visibility and authority across the entire discovery ecosystem.

AI Updates

ChatGPT ads are now here

OpenAI has now opened the door for select advertisers to begin advertising on the free version of ChatGPT in the USA. The cost-per-click is estimated to be near $60 USD, but we will only know what the reality looks like once we can start testing.

We’ve registered as an agency advertiser and are awaiting access. We’ll report back once we have a clearer sense of whether it can become a viable B2B advertising channel.

We are thinking about more than search

We are currently deep in development of a suite of applications designed to automate and enhance core website management tasks. This includes tools that automatically apply metadata to web pages, intelligently interlink related content to create structured topic clusters, and dynamically format images based on device type and connection speed.

There are also a few more that are too new to chat about. The focus is about using AI to make the editor experience on the website more efficient.

Google is encouraging clicks

Google is updating AI Overviews and AI Mode to make source links clearer and more prominent across mobile and desktop, responding to publisher concerns about visibility.

On desktop, hovering over a link icon will now open a grouped list of sources, showing site names, icons and brief article previews to make original content easier to find.