From Consideration to Validation – How Agentic Search Could Alter the Marketing Funnel

Users have already grown accustomed to using tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to find things like restaurants, activities, and consumer products but AI capabilities are expanding rapidly: Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic are working together to build an infrastructure that can push AI beyond research and into action. The agentic web will enable an AI agent to act on behalf of users to book dinner reservations, buy tickets, sign up for newsletters, and more. Researchers are referring to the accompanying behavioral shift as “the delegate economy” in which people outsource, or delegate, more and more of the purchase process to an AI agent.

In this delegate economy, it is possible that the first time a person discovers and interacts with a brand is moments before purchase because an AI agent found, assessed, recommended, and added-to-cart all without human intervention. The awareness and consideration phases which could otherwise have taken days or weeks may be reduced to seconds. Crystal Carter, Head of AI Search & SEO Communications at Wix describes a “validation layer” where instead of weighing options like traditional consideration, users may instead validate to confirm a decision that has been made by an AI agent on their behalf.

In a world of agentic web search and the delegate economy, brands, customers, and the relationship between brands and their customers will likely need to shift. As the distance between the top of the funnel and conversion get closer together it will become more important to optimize websites for AI and agentic interaction. Additionally, if the role of the customer moves away from browser and researcher to validator and approver, brands may need to adjust how they speak to their audience.