Your Next Customer May Never See Your Website
HBR's Sangeet Paul Choudary argues that as shoppers hand research and buying to AI agents, a company can keep its traffic and sales and still lose control of the decision itself.
Prompted by “Who Owns the Customer in the Age of AI Agents?”, HBR (Sangeet Paul Choudary).
HBR's Sangeet Paul Choudary argues that as shoppers hand research, comparison, and buying to AI agents, a company can keep its traffic, engagement, and sales and still lose control of the decision itself.
Two examples build on each other. Meta launched an AI shopping agent called Muse in September. Twelve days later, Amazon blocked it, saying outside agents should identify themselves and get permission first. Even Amazon, which has shaped how people search and buy for three decades, is trying to keep the agent out.
Walmart found that purchases made inside ChatGPT converted at about a third the rate of its own site, so it moved toward bringing its own shopping experience into ChatGPT instead.
Who knows why customers choose you?
You don't run a marketplace, but the question travels to small and medium-sized businesses. When a customer's assistant starts doing the research, who knows why customers actually choose you, and why others pass?
The article's conclusion is that the advantage goes to whoever sees decisions through to their outcomes and learns from them. A smaller company that talks to its customers directly can start learning that today.
Whether you're a CEO or an owner-operator, if your answer is “our website” or “our reviews,” that's the part an assistant can summarize without ever sending anyone your way.
Test it out: pull your last five new customers. For each one, write down how they found you, who else they considered, and why they picked you. If you can't fill in all three from memory, call them this week and ask.
Understanding why customers choose you is the kind of thing we work through in Strategic Advisory.
Looking for a place to discuss issues like this with other local business leaders? Join one of our no-cost Rochester CEO insight sessions and test your ideas with your peers.
Originally posted on LinkedIn ↗