Mark Schaefer
Marketing keynote speaker, strategy consultant and author, Schaefer Marketing Solutions
On artificial intelligence and consumer trust in brands
Our takeOpinion
A marketing keynote speaker, strategy consultant and author at Schaefer Marketing Solutions raises how AI-driven product recommendations are decided on clarity of explanation rather than reputation, and what that means for brand building. A reader can take from it that a made-up deodorant brand with a thin website was recommended by chatbots, sometimes over established names, and that a research study found lesser-known brands gained exposure from AI-friendly tactics while market leaders did not. The text also holds that emotional attachment, word of mouth, brand communities and advertising can still override a machine's suggestion, so a brand needs to be understood by systems and trusted by people. This fits brands with real customer attachment, and challengers or newer names that need to make their product legible to AI tools. Our view: the evidence is one small experiment, one study and the writer's own anecdotes, and the claims about loyalty overriding algorithms are asserted rather than measured, so categories driven by price or routine purchase may behave differently.
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