New Resource: Re-centering the audience journey for the age of AI

By this point, it’s no longer news: Everyone’s talking about AI. It’s probably coming up in conversations about how your company runs, too. Boards are pushing CMOs for an “AI strategy.” CFOs are looking for "efficiencies" (in other words, cost-cutting). Meanwhile, marketing teams are feeling the pressure: Can their customer strategies really compare to what AI brings to consumers? How can they possibly adapt?  

There is no doubt that a massive shift is underway with the rise of generative AI that’s on par with the invention of the brand website, the introduction of SEO, and the “Web 2.0” revolution that brought us social and mobile apps. But right now, many marketers are getting too focused on the technology available to them, as opposed to building a strategy committed to understanding the evolving customer journey. In short, marketers shouldn’t be focused on AI. They should be focused on what they have always been focused on – the customer.

That journey looks different today than it did even two years ago. It’s faster, less linear, and influenced in big ways by AI-driven discovery. Your brand’s appearance in an LLM’s answer can suddenly rocket a consumer out of brand awareness and pull them almost instantly to the cusp of making a purchase… but only if your brand is ready for that conversion.

We’ll break down what’s changing, share early signals we’re seeing in the data, and offer a simple framework to help you adapt. You can download the full asset below:

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Here's why we created this framework for you.

‍1. The Noise Around AI

‍Boards and CEOs are pressing CMOs for efficiency-driven AI strategies. Some even set explicit goals, like insisting on “$100M in savings by 2026.” Inside marketing teams, the worry is clear: efficiency-focused strategies risk ignoring consumer expectations, degrading brand quality, and ultimately hurting business results in a way that erases any gains from AI cost-cutting. The challenge is to move the perception of AI from a cost-cutting vehicle to an unprecedented supercharger for productivity and performance.

‍2. What’s Really Happening: The Customer Journey is Changing

‍The old funnel (awareness → consideration → intent → purchase) no longer holds.

• Compression of Consumer Research: LLM-driven discovery collapses steps that used to take weeks into days… or even less time.
• Non-linear Journeys: LLM citations can drop people directly into mid-funnel or lower-funnel content on a website, bypassing the traditional sequence of a site visitor landing straight on the homepage.
• Two Audiences: Websites now serve both humans (who seek validation and personalization) and AI agents (which need structured, machine-readable content). Today’s sites, many of which are still designed for classical SEO, do a poor job of serving both.

3. What The Data Tells Us

‍Early Knotch data across industries shows:

• Visitors to your site who came in via LLMs are fewer in number, but they’re more valuable. They convert at much higher rates than SEO or direct visitors.
• Their journeys are shorter and more concentrated. LLM-driven visitors engage with more pages in fewer sessions before converting.
• New high-value pages are emerging. Instead of traditional landing pages, citations often drop people deeper into sites – onto pages that may not have been optimized for first-time visitors that are new to the brand.

This illustrates the leading indicators of an evolving customer journey.

‍4. A Simple Framework: Dual Optimization

‍Instead of choosing between “optimizing for AI” or “optimizing for people,” you need to do both.

Think of it as two levers:

1. LLM Optimization – making sure your content is structured so that AI systems can find it.
   
2. Human Optimization – building experiences that feel relevant, personal, and helpful for real people.

This framework doesn’t assume you’re going to build a perfect model. Rather, it encourages you to create a simple system that makes sense to your team, your boss, and your customers.

‍5. A Playbook for Marketing Leaders‍

Here’s how to put this into action:

• Audit Across Two Audiences
  
  • Map where humans vs. AI agents touch your journey.
  • Identify where journeys are compressing, speeding up, or skipping stages.

• Ask the Right Questions
  
  • Where is the funnel compressing most frequently?
  • Which content is getting skipped in the process?

• Design for Dual Experiences
  
  • Humans want clarity and personalization, which is more important than ever when they’re landing on your site through “side doors” guided by LLMs.
  • Agents need structured, machine-readable data that answers specific questions.

• Focus on Productivity, Not Just Efficiency
  
  • Frame AI as a way to create better-performing experiences, not just cheaper ones.
  • In turn, frame productivity as doing more that matters, not doing more for less.

• Iterate Fast
  
  • Don’t wait for perfect data.
  • Test assumptions, measure incrementally, and adapt quickly. This landscape is still evolving, and your strategy needs to do the same.

AI has led to mandates across the business world for efficiency, optimization, and the ability to use generative and agentic systems to cut costs. But when this kind of reactive “AI strategy” is deployed, it can end up cutting corners and distancing the brand from its own customers. The right way to address AI is to consider above all how it’s changing the way your customers are behaving, and to start from there. After all, no matter whether it’s ChatGPT or Claude speeding up the discovery process, on the other side there’s still – and always will be – a human.

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Published December 15, 2025