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AI Agents

Marketing to AI agents to get your brand recommended

AI agents now research and recommend for people. See what they read, and how to get your brand on their list.

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Agent shortlist

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On this pageDefinition
  1. 01Definition
  2. 02Not the same thing
  3. 03The new audience
  4. 04Why it matters
  5. 05Playbook
  6. 06By team
  7. 07Avoid
  8. 08Measurement
  9. 09FAQs

Marketing to AI agents meaning

Marketing to AI agents, also called B2A or business to agent marketing, is the work of shaping what AI agents learn about your brand so they include it in answers and shortlists. Bain calls agents marketing's new middleman: buyers let them research, compare and rank the options. It is not the same as AI agents for marketing, which are tools a marketing team uses.

01 · Definition

What are machine customers?

Machine customers are AI agents and automated systems that research, choose or buy goods and services for a person or a business. Splunk defines a machine customer as a non-human entity that autonomously engages in transactions, like purchasing goods and services. Gartner popularized the term, and marketing to AI agents is how a brand sells to them.

Gartner describes three phases, as Splunk summarizes them. In the bound phase a person leads and the machine executes. In the adaptable phase, expected around 2026, the two co-lead. In the autonomous phase, expected within a decade, the machine leads. Most agents a brand meets today sit in the first two phases: a person sets the goal and approves the result.

The size of the shift is a forecast, not a measurement. Splunk reports that CEOs surveyed by Gartner expect up to 20% of their companies' revenue to come from machine customers by 2030. Early data points the same way: Salesforce data reported by MarTech says AI agents influenced 20% of global retail sales in the 2025 holiday season.

AI answer

For small agencies, yourbrand.com fits best.

source 1source 2source 3

02 · Not the same thing

Marketing to AI agents vs AI agents for marketing.

Marketing to AI agents treats the agent as the audience; AI agents for marketing treat the agent as a worker on your team. Search results for this phrase mix the two, so separate them before planning any work. This page covers the first. For an agent that does SEO work for you, see the AISEO SEO agent.

The agent is
Marketing to AI agentsThe audience that reads and recommends
AI agents for marketingA tool that writes, sends and adjusts campaigns
Who owns it
Marketing to AI agentsBrand, SEO, content, PR and product marketing
AI agents for marketingMarketing operations and martech
Goal
Marketing to AI agentsBe named, cited and shortlisted in agent answers
AI agents for marketingDo more marketing work with fewer manual steps
Main inputs
Marketing to AI agentsCrawlable pages, product facts, reviews, third-party mentions
AI agents for marketingCRM data, campaign assets, budgets
Success looks like
Marketing to AI agentsMentions, citations and selection by agents
AI agents for marketingOutput, speed and campaign results

03 · The new audience

How do AI agents decide which brands to recommend?

AI agents decide by running many searches, reading many sources and summarizing what those sources agree on. OpenAI describes deep research as an agentic capability that works through hundreds of sources, and Google says Deep Search in AI Mode can issue hundreds of searches. A brand gets recommended when those sources describe it clearly and consistently.

  • 01

    They split one request into many searches

    Google calls this query fan-out: "a set of concurrent, related queries generated by the model" (Google). An agent asked for the best CRM for a small agency may also look up pricing, reviews and integrations.

  • 02

    They read beyond the top ten

    In an Ahrefs study of 863K search results, 37.9% of URLs cited in AI Overviews ranked in the top 10. Across AI assistants, only 12% of cited URLs ranked in Google's top 10 for the same prompt (Ahrefs).

  • 03

    They lean on third parties

    Bain, citing Scrunch AI analysis, reports that more than 90% of the content in AI answers to nonbranded queries comes from third-party sources (Bain). Reviews, forums, comparisons and press shape the answer more than your homepage does.

  • 04

    They skip what they cannot read

    To be a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet (Google). Bain adds that models favor clean, scrapable sites and text over embedded images.

04 · Why it matters

Why marketing to AI agents matters now.

The first impression is moving from your website to an answer the buyer reads without clicking. That answer is now a marketing surface, and agents write it.

  1. 01

    Fewer clicks

    Pew Research found people clicked a result on 8% of visits with an AI summary, against 15% without one.

  2. 02

    Zero-click habits

    In Bain's survey, about 80% of consumers rely on zero-click results for at least 40% of their searches.

  3. 03

    Agents reach the buying step

    Some agents now compare products and check out with the buyer's approval. Agentic commerce covers how that checkout works.

Being named still pays. In Seer Interactive data, brands cited in an AI Overview got 120% more organic clicks per impression than brands that were not cited.

05 · Playbook

How to market to AI agents in 7 steps.

Start with what agents can read on your own site, then build the outside evidence they trust, then measure. Google's AI optimization guide is clear that this work is still SEO: crawlable, helpful pages come first.

  1. 1

    Make key pages indexable

    Check robots rules, canonical tags and index status in Search Console. A page Google cannot index cannot support an AI Overview or AI Mode answer.

  2. 2

    State the facts in plain text

    Put what you sell, who it suits, the pricing model, limits and policies on crawlable pages. Bain notes that models favor definitions, ordered lists and guides.

  3. 3

    Keep facts consistent

    Match product names, specs and claims across your site, feeds, marketplaces and profiles, so agents do not find conflicting versions.

  4. 4

    Mark up what is visible

    Use structured data that matches the visible content, as Google recommends in its guidance on AI search.

  5. 5

    Earn third-party proof

    Reviews, comparisons, community answers and press supply most answer content. Earn them honestly: Google says seeking inauthentic mentions does not help.

  6. 6

    Answer the follow-up questions

    Cover pricing, alternatives, integrations and use cases on real pages buyers need. Do not publish a page for every fan-out query; Google warns that can violate its scaled content abuse policy.

  7. 7

    Measure mentions and citations

    Track how assistants describe and cite your brand for the prompts buyers use, and review the generative AI reports in Search Console.

06 · By team

What changes for each marketing team?

Each team keeps its job, but the first reader is now often software working for a buyer. The table shows where the work shifts when a team markets to AI agents.

SEO
Before agentsRank pages for keywords
When marketing to AI agentsRank and get cited across the searches an agent fans out to
Content
Before agentsPersuasive pages for people
When marketing to AI agentsClear, quotable answers that people and agents can both use
PR and communications
Before agentsCoverage for reach
When marketing to AI agentsCoverage on sites that assistants read and cite
Product marketing
Before agentsPositioning and messaging
When marketing to AI agentsConsistent facts: who it is for, specs, limits, pricing model
Ecommerce
Before agentsProduct pages and ads
When marketing to AI agentsComplete product data and feeds that agents can compare
Analytics
Before agentsSessions and conversions
When marketing to AI agentsMentions, citations and AI referral traffic

07 · Avoid

Common mistakes when marketing to AI agents.

Most mistakes come from treating agents as a system to game instead of readers to inform. Google's AI optimization guide, published July 10, 2026, addresses several of them directly.

  • A page for every fan-out query

    Google says making pages for each fan-out query can violate its scaled content abuse policy.

  • Buying or faking mentions

    Google says seeking inauthentic mentions does not help. Agents weigh what independent sources say.

  • Counting on llms.txt for Google

    Google Search ignores llms.txt. See llms.txt for what the file does and where it may still be read.

  • Trusting claims of inside access

    Google states that no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems. Measurement tools observe answers from the outside.

  • Facts only in images or behind logins

    Prices, specs and policies locked in images or gated pages are hard for agents to read. Bain notes models favor text over embedded images.

08 · Measurement

How do you measure marketing to AI agents?

Measure it in two places: what Google reports about its AI features, and what the assistants themselves say about your brand. Neither one gives the full picture alone.

  • 01

    Search Console

    AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic is counted under Web in the Performance report (Google). Generative AI performance reports, rolled out to all sites as of August 31, 2026, show impressions for AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover by page, country, device and date, without clicks (Google).

  • 02

    Assistant answers

    Run the prompts buyers use in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Grok. Record whether your brand is named, linked as a source and described correctly.

  • 03

    Change over time

    AI Overviews change every 2.15 days on average, and consecutive versions share 54.5% of cited URLs (Ahrefs). Watch trends over weeks, not single checks.

09 · FAQs

Common questions about marketing to AI agents.

What is B2A marketing?

B2A, or business to agent, marketing is another name for marketing to AI agents: selling to software that researches or buys for a person. In older usage B2A also means business to administration, so the short term is ambiguous in search.

Is marketing to AI agents the same as GEO?

They overlap. Generative engine optimization is about being cited in AI answers; marketing to AI agents also covers agents that compare, shortlist and buy. See GEO vs SEO for how GEO relates to classic SEO.

Do AI agents replace SEO?

No. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet. Assistants from other companies also search the web, so crawlable, well-ranked pages still matter.

Which AI agents matter most for marketers?

The assistants buyers already use: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. ChatGPT search and Claude web search both answer with links to their sources.

How do AI shopping agents fit in?

Shopping agents are one kind of AI agent that compares products and can buy with approval. See AI shopping agents for what they need from product pages, and agentic search for how agents search the web.

Can AISEO show how AI assistants see my brand?

Yes. The free GEO report takes a website URL and shows how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Grok and Google AI Overviews mention and cite your brand. Sign-in is required, and the first report is free.

Related topics

Sources

  1. 01Marketing's new middleman: AI agents · Bain & Company, April 14, 2025
  2. 02Machine customers: a complete introduction · Splunk, March 21, 2025
  3. 03How AI agents shaped the record-breaking 2025 holiday season · MarTech, January 21, 2026
  4. 04Introducing deep research · OpenAI, February 2, 2025
  5. 05AI Mode update · Google, May 20, 2025
  6. 06AI optimization guide · Google Search Central, July 10, 2026
  7. 07AI features and your website · Google Search Central, checked September 27, 2026
  8. 08Top ways to succeed in AI search · Google Search Central, May 21, 2025
  9. 09Generative AI performance reports in Search Console · Google Search Central, June 3, 2026
  10. 10AI Overview citations and top 10 rankings · Ahrefs, March 2, 2026
  11. 11AI search overlap with Google's top 10 · Ahrefs, August 11, 2025
  12. 12How often AI Overviews change · Ahrefs, checked September 27, 2026
  13. 13Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears · Pew Research Center, July 22, 2025
  14. 14AIO impact on Google CTR: 2026 update · Seer Interactive, April 24, 2026
  15. 15Introducing ChatGPT search · OpenAI, October 31, 2024
  16. 16Web search on Claude · Anthropic, March 20, 2025