The battle before the search

Consumers are increasingly arriving through AI, recommendations, social platforms and marketplaces. The battle ahead will be how to influence recommendation engines, not simply ranking in search engines, explains Justin Thomas, VP Sales - EMEA North for Akeneo.

Keywords, rankings and paid placements no longer hold the monopoly over discovery. Instead, the customer arrives after a recommendation has narrowed the field. They may have asked an AI assistant for a suitable laptop, discovered a product socially, followed a marketplace recommendation or delegated the comparison to an autonomous agent. The conventional search box may appear later or it may not appear at all.

In this context, retailers may be asking the wrong question, “Will the customer find us?” remains important but retailers must consider: “Will the systems advising the customer understand us, trust us and recommend us?”

New UK research among 200 senior technology and business decision makers illustrate how quickly that question is moving up the agenda. 60% expect AI agents, including autonomous shopping and comparison tools, to be among the customer interaction channels most influenced by AI over the next three years. Conversational or chat based journeys were selected by 36%, while 33% pointed to social commerce.

The key is, brands do not control the interface but a third party interprets the need and decides which products deserve consideration.

Search engine optimisation was designed to help a page earn visibility while a recommendation engine demands something more extractive. It must identify what a product is, which needs it satiates, how it differs from alternatives, whether it is available and whether the underlying information can be trusted.

A customer searching for a “waterproof walking jacket” may tolerate links. One asking an AI assistant for “a genuinely waterproof, lightweight jacket for a wet week in Scotland, under £200 and available by Friday,” expects a well-reasoned, structured, shortlist. Without dependable information about waterproof rating, weight, fit, price, stock and delivery, the engine cannot confidently justify the recommendation. This is why the battle before the search is essentially a product information battle.

The same survey found that 71% of respondents use structured enterprise systems such as PIM, ERP, DAM and CRM as primary data sources for AI. But this is only the start of the journey to create usable, connected information for the AI world. Data has to be repurposed. Currently, respondents are estimating that an average 43% of AI project effort is already spent preparing data, while 29% said preparation consumes more than half of the total effort.

That burden will increase as long as businesses treat product information as material to be produced separately for individual channels. AI systems need complete, structured and contextualised product knowledge that can move consistently across every place where a recommendation may be made.

There will be no single formula equivalent to the old SEO rules. A marketplace may reward price, availability and seller performance; a social platform may respond to imagery and engagement, while a conversational engine may combine specifications, reviews, authoritative sources and how clearly a product answers the consumers demand.

Brands therefore need to make their product stories both machine readable and worth recommending. That means consistent attributes and taxonomies, but also richer descriptions, use cases, comparisons, evidence, localisation and channel-specific context. Accuracy matters because an AI-generated recommendation can amplify an error as efficiently as it can amplify a strength.

The external signals are already visible. Adobe Analytics reported that traffic from generative-AI services to US retail sites increased 693% year on year during the 2025 holiday season, which shows that AI is becoming a route into commerce.

This transition will be a challenge for marketing teams because a brand cannot simply buy its way into every answer, nor assume that a beautifully optimised product page will be interpreted correctly elsewhere.

Trying to “game” every model is not the answer because recommendation systems change too quickly. A more sustainable strategy is to become the clearest and most trustworthy source of product truth in the category. And that depends on marketing, commerce, product and IT teams working from a common foundation. They must identify the questions customers actually ask, enrich the attributes required to answer them, distribute that information to every relevant endpoint and monitor how products are represented in AI, marketplace and social environments.

There is also a serious commercial consequence to consider. When an agent can compare hundreds of products in seconds, vague differentiation becomes visible. Claims such as “premium”, “innovative” or “sustainable” will carry little weight without specifications, certifications, provenance or evidence. AI may expose where brand language has been compensating for thin product information.

Search remains important as does the brand website but both are becoming parts of a wider discovery system in which consumers may reach a brand that has taken the necessary steps to have optimised and informed data. This means the next battle starts before the search, using trusted product knowledge that makes machines choose the brand before the customer starts to choose.

About Akeneo

Akeneo is the Product Experience (PX) company and global leader with its Product Cloud solutions, providing the foundational operating system for the AI commerce era.

With its agentic Product Cloud, Akeneo enables brands, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to centralize, govern, and orchestrate their product information, transforming fragmented data into trusted, actionable assets. With the integration of PricingHUB, Akeneo extends its platform beyond product data to unify product data and pricing — the two signals that drive discovery, conversion, and business performance. Together, Akeneo helps organizations move from managing product information to making better business decisions, aligning what they sell and how they sell it to compete and win in a rapidly evolving, AI-driven market.

Leading global brands, including Chico’s, TaylorMade Golf, Rail Europe, and more, trust Akeneo to scale their commerce initiatives and deliver consistent, high-performing product experiences. For more information: https://www.akeneo.com