What Will Happen to Marketing in the Age of AI Agents?
How will AI agents reshape marketing? This article explores the key shifts, challenges, and opportunities that AI-powered agents bring to marketing strategy, helping businesses adapt and lead.
In recent years, the topic of AI agents has stopped being a futuristic forecast and has become a concrete business reality. Back in 2020, venture funding for startups in this field totaled just $24 million across 8 deals, but by 2024 it had soared past $3.8 billion with 162 deals (according to CB Insights).
These aren’t just impressive numbers – they’re evidence of a fundamental shift in how the internet and the digital consumer experience are evolving. AI agents are becoming the new “gateways” to online services and products, radically changing the role of brands, marketers, and even the platforms themselves.
At MIM:AGENCY, we’ll try to explain what’s happening in this market, why everyone is rushing to invest in agents, how consumer behavior is changing, and what this means for business.
The Investment Boom: What the Numbers Reveal
According to CB Insights (funding data as of late February 2025), the AI agent market is experiencing explosive growth:
Growth accelerated sharply in 2023. Analysts link this to the arrival of new generations of LLMs (large language models) and the shift from simple automation to true “agency”, solutions capable of making independent decisions with minimal human oversight.
What Are AI Agents?
CB Insights offers a useful classification along a scale of autonomy:
Chatbots
- Have basic logical reasoning.
- No external memory or tools for action.
Copilots and Assistants
- Can use external memory.
- Perform support tasks on demand.
Agents with Guardrails
- Use tools and external memory.
- Handle more complex tasks within controlled limits.
Fully Autonomous Agents
- Have planning capabilities, tools, and external memory.
- Capable of making decisions and acting without constant human input.
All of these categories together form the spectrum of AI agents, from the simplest to the most advanced systems that are taking on more and more “human” work.
Bernstein: “The Internet Will Go Dark”?
Analysts at Bernstein offered a provocative opinion: once AI agents are deeply embedded in our lives and businesses, the internet will “go dark.” It sounds like a disaster movie scenario, but what they mean is a shift in the architecture of access. For example, today you search for accommodation on Airbnb, read reviews, and compare prices. Tomorrow you’ll simply say:
“Find me a villa in Phuket for 2 weeks starting July 1st.”
Your agent will check dozens of sites, from Airbnb to local platforms, choose the best price-quality ratio, and make the booking. Airbnb might spend millions building its brand, but the agent has no favorite brands. It simply seeks the best result.
Changing Consumer Behavior: Adobe Analytics Data
This isn’t theoretical speculation. Adobe Analytics data points to a real shift:
- Traffic from generative chatbots to US travel sites has surged 1700%.
- In retail and banking, it’s up 1200%.
Adobe also surveyed consumers and found:
| What Users Do with AI | % of Respondents |
| Research products | 55% |
| Get personalized recommendations | 47% |
| Look for discounts | 43% |
| Choose gifts | 35% |
| Create shopping lists | 33% |
Even more striking:
- 92% of users report an improved shopping experience.
- 87% are ready to trust AI with more complex purchases.
These numbers are impressive, but they also confirm a fundamental trend.
New Challenges for Business
This revolution brings serious challenges for brands and marketers. How do you promote your product if the decision-maker isn’t a human, but an algorithm?
It will be critically important to:
- Build trust. People will still trust reliable services, even if the agent itself is brand-agnostic.
- Optimize for agents. Companies will need to learn how to “sell” not to people, but to AI that chooses based on quality and price metrics.
In this new reality, agents could become “aggregators of aggregators,” much like Google is for advertising or Apple is for apps today. They will sit at the top of the value chain, collecting their share from the entire ecosystem.
Conclusion
We stand on the verge of the most radical changes in the digital economy in decades. Some companies will see this as a threat. Others will find an opportunity to enter a new “blue ocean.” Right now, data from CB Insights and Adobe Analytics sends a clear signal: the future belongs to AI agents. How quickly businesses learn to work with them will determine their survival and success.
