What is AI and Why Does It Matter?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the way people search online and interact with brands. While AI has existed for years, recent tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI-powered search features are now mainstream.
Brands need to adapt their search strategies and digital content to remain visible in this AI-driven landscape. Those that ignore AI risk losing audience attention and relevance.
What Is New in the Digital World
Over the past few years, the digital landscape has changed dramatically. Tools such as AI-powered search on Google and AI assistants on our phones—like ChatGPT—have become part of everyday life. People now expect faster, more personalised search results and help across a range of tasks.
These changes are raising new and important questions: How do we prevent misuse? How can we harness AI effectively? How can we tell when someone is using AI tools?
Essentially, we are entering a new playing field that requires new rules—and one of the most significant areas affected is branding. Even we at tda! are adapting to this new reality.
As more people turn to AI chatbots for quick, conversational answers, many marketers admit they are completely unprepared for the impact of AI. This leads to a critical question for brands: How can we ensure our visibility in AI-driven searches?
Areas AI could assist brands
The rise of AI presents both challenges and opportunities. For brands, it is crucial to recognise these opportunities and use them strategically. While AI offers a wide range of possibilities, it still requires human oversight and should always be tailored to your brand’s specific goals.
AI can support many areas of marketing - from improving search and SEO to enhancing customer experience and even checking grammar. From a branding perspective, two key areas where AI can make a difference are search strategy and digital content creation.
The impact of AI on Strategic Search
AI is reshaping how brands approach search, changing the way we optimise our digital presence. Traditional SEO focused mainly on keywords and backlinks, but AI-driven search now places more emphasis on intent, context, and relevance. This means that websites, content, and even social media must be designed with AI in mind.
Impact on Websites
Websites must be structured in a way that AI can easily understand and index. A clear site structure, optimised metadata, and high-quality, trustworthy content are now essential. AI also evaluates user experience factors such as page load speed, mobile responsiveness, and engagement when determining which pages to prioritise.
Impact on Content
Content creation must move beyond keyword stuffing and focus on delivering real value. AI-driven algorithms reward content that is informative, well-organised, and aligned with user intent. Brands should use conversational language, long-tail keywords, and formats that AI recognises as relevant, such as FAQs, videos, and how-to guides.
Impact on Social Media
Social media is no longer just for engagement; it plays a growing role in search visibility. AI considers social signals, trending topics, and user interactions when curating personalised search results. Brands should align their social strategy with SEO, creating shareable and relevant content that reflects current conversations.
Strategic Implications
Ignoring AI in search risks reduced visibility and missed opportunities. To stay competitive, brands must take a holistic approach: aligning website structure, content strategy, and social media activity with AI-driven search principles. This ensures your brand appears where users are looking and remains relevant in an AI-powered digital world.
How to optimise your search strategy
In the age of AI, search optimisation is no longer just about ranking for keywords — it’s about making sure your brand is understood by machines and trusted by people. AI-driven search tools like Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) and ChatGPT don’t just collect information anymore; they interpret meaning, context, and intent. This means your content should be clear, useful, and written to answer real questions, not just to satisfy algorithms.
Start by reviewing your existing content. Does it show expertise, authority, and trust (E-A-T)? These are key signals AI systems use to decide what content to highlight. Add structured data and schema markup so search engines can easily understand your pages. Write in a natural, conversational tone, using the kind of phrases people actually say when talking to AI.
For example:
- Instead of “best digital marketing agency,” use “What’s the best digital marketing agency in Edinburgh?”
Next, make sure your technical SEO is solid. Your website should load quickly, work smoothly on mobile, and provide a simple, engaging user experience. AI rewards pages that are easy to navigate and keep people interested.
Finally, keep learning and adapting. AI is evolving fast, and strategies that work today might change tomorrow. Regularly test, review, and update your content to stay visible and relevant.
In short, optimising for AI search is about writing for people first — creating content that’s authentic, easy to understand, and truly helpful to your audience.
Key Benefits of AI in Digital Marketing
1. Speed and Efficiency
AI tools such as ChatGPT can create copy, draft articles, and generate campaign ideas in seconds. This allows marketers to spend more time on creative strategy and innovation, rather than repetitive tasks.
2. Personalisation at Scale
AI analyses customer behaviour, preferences, and search intent to deliver highly tailored experiences. Whether it’s personalised emails, product recommendations, or dynamic website content, AI helps brands connect with audiences in a more relevant way.
3. Deeper Data Insights
AI can identify emerging patterns in search queries, social sentiment, or customer behaviour far faster than traditional analysis. This helps brands predict trends, refine targeting, and make smarter, data-driven decisions.
4. Consistency and Accuracy
From proofreading to tone analysis, AI tools help ensure brand messaging stays professional, polished, and consistent across all platforms.
5. Enhanced Customer Experience
Chatbots, voice assistants, and predictive analytics powered by AI make customer interactions faster and more personalised. This not only improves satisfaction but also builds trust and loyalty over time.
Challenges & Considerations
1. The Skills Gap
Many marketing teams still lack the technical understanding to use AI effectively. Without training and clear guidance, AI-generated content can be inconsistent or off-brand.
2. Overreliance on AI
Using AI without human input can lead to generic or emotionless content. AI should support creativity—not replace it. The most effective approach combines human insight with AI efficiency.
3. Ethics and Privacy
AI relies heavily on data, which raises concerns about transparency, consent, and bias. Brands must ensure their data practices follow privacy laws and ethical standards such as GDPR compliance.
4. Maintaining Trust
As consumers become more aware of AI’s role in marketing, honesty and openness are crucial. Brands should clearly communicate how they use AI and ensure it enhances the user experience rather than manipulates it.
Where to start?
If you like many others are wondering where to start? Then I would say a good content review. Look at the content you have on your website and overall digital content. Do you have FAQS, LONG TEXT, APPROPRIATE HEADLINES, ETC. Things that will assist you in ensuring your content appears on ChatGPT starches.
If you want a hand in getting started, we at tda! Can assist you in this initial content review and even assist you in the optimising your website, strategy and content to meet the new challenges and opportunities of the age of AI.
Glossary of Key Terms
AI (Artificial Intelligence): Technology that allows machines to perform tasks that usually require human intelligence, such as language understanding and decision-making.
ChatGPT: An AI language model that can generate human-like text, answer questions, and assist with tasks such as writing and idea generation.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): The process of improving a website to increase its visibility on search engines like Google.
E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trust): Factors used by search engines to assess the quality and credibility of online content.
Structured Data / Schema Markup: Code added to web pages to help search engines understand and categorise content more effectively.
Search Generative Experience (SGE): Google’s new AI-powered search feature that provides summarised, conversational responses instead of traditional links.
