The way that audiences discover new content, brands, and products has been fundamentally changing. Over the last few years, one of the main ways in which discovery was being driven was through short-form content. Initially, you had brands partnering with creators to put their products in front of their audiences, but now you have brands like Swiggy and Duolingo that have leaned into becoming “creators” themselves.
And we have the data to back this up. One of the tools I’ve used throughout most of my career has been GlobalWebIndex, and a question we always looked at for our audience analysis would be “Sources of Brand Discovery.” In 2020, ‘Search Engines’ were the top source at 34%, with ‘Ads via Social Media’ at around 27%. By 2025, ‘Search Engines’ had dropped to 31%, while ‘Ads via Social Media’ had risen to 33%.
With AI adoption accelerating in India, AI-led discovery is the frontier that deserves attention. Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) are the new buzzwords, and while they won’t fully replace SEO since the AI solutions will be reading the web to provide their answers, brands need to be ready to tackle the competition in this new frontier of AEO and GEO.
The primary reason for this is intent. AEO & GEO not only give users the answers to their questions, but also quantify and validate what they’re searching for, rather than traditional SEO, which only gives you a link to a product or service, leaving the user to do the additional research themselves.
The playbook is still a work in progress, and that’s the most compelling part about AI-led discovery. Those who start early are not just adapting to where things are progressing; they get to shape the trajectory.
This shift in intent is what makes AI-led discovery genuinely disruptive. The user no longer lands on a brand’s site partway through their research; they arrive having already seen the shortlist, the comparisons, and often a direct recommendation. This results in brand and product consideration moving up the “funnel” into what was earlier meant to be just discovery.
The action plan for brands is clear. First, brands should audit how they show up in results on AI platforms in comparison to their competitors. Second, they should find a way to drive up their positive mentions on platforms like Reddit, in news coverage, transcripts of content, and other sources that AI platforms crawl through. From there, consistently keeping an eye on how their brand is showing up in results will give a clearer idea of what’s working for them and what’s not.
The playbook is still a work in progress, and that’s the most compelling part about AI-led discovery. Those who start early are not just adapting to where things are progressing; they get to shape the trajectory. That’s the position we have always tried to occupy and will continue to do so.
Bilal is VP – Media and Analytics at OML
