▌A New Marketing Channel for Brands
Behind every conversion is a person. Not a cookie ID, not a “qualified lead,” not a line on a dashboard. A person with a real problem who has chosen to trust you.
We’ve reached a strange point. We have AI that writes ads, AI that responds on behalf of search engines, and AI that recommends products before a person even sees your website. And yet, the more we automate, the clearer one thing becomes: the final decision is still made by a human.
A mother looking for the right gift on a tight budget. An entrepreneur trying to protect his profit margin. A procurement manager who puts his signature and reputation on the line for a supplier. Whether we’re talking about B2C or B2B, at the top of the chain there’s always someone who feels, fears, compares, and hopes.
We’ve compiled some of the most important news stories and statistics from the past few weeks. They all tell the same story, in their own way: Marketing isn’t about ads. It’s about people.
▌100 clicks or 20 people?
Agencies testing ChatGPT Ads are reporting a huge discrepancy: the platform shows about 100 clicks, while their own tracking measures only 20. For this reason, budgets are remaining at a test level for now.
If the platform reports 100 clicks, but your own measurements confirm only 20 visits, that doesn’t automatically mean that 80 are fake. It means you have an attribution or measurement issue that you need to understand before scaling up.
The practical takeaway is simple: before you increase your budget on any new channel, set up your own tracking (UTM, CRM) and track people, not events. The current situation is relevant—just as it was with Google Ads or TikTok Ads in their early years.
▌AI responds. Humans decide.
AI has become the new intermediary between brands and customers. Data from DemandSphere shows that AI Overviews now appear in over 80% of brand searches, up from about 26% previously, with a peak of 90.48% on September 27. This happened without any announcement from Google.
This means that when someone searches for you by name, you’re no longer the one making the first impression. It’s an AI-generated summary that does it. And yet, what is the person looking for there? Confirmation. Trust. A reason to choose.
What’s more, AI already has its preferences. Large retail chains account for 63–70% of shopping recommendations from ChatGPT and Google’s AI without a web search, and 46–58% with a live search. For a small or medium-sized store, this is a wake-up call: if you aren’t visible and credible, the AI won’t recommend you.
The good news: AI traffic is no longer invisible. Gemini now adds UTM parameters to links to websites, so visits no longer appear as “direct” in GA4. You can finally see how many people are coming from AI and what they do afterward.
AI filters the options. But it’s people who click, read the reviews, call the company, and pay. And AI learns everything from people: from their reviews, mentions, and conversations about you.
▌B2C: Beyond Conversions
Adobe estimates record online sales of $275.1 billion during the U.S. holiday season, up 6.7% from 2025, with over $15 billion on Cyber Monday alone. It sounds like consumer euphoria. But there’s another important detail: people are also buying everyday essentials, not just gifts.
The human side of the numbers: People take advantage of sales to stock up their pantries, stretch their budgets, and make it through the coming months. It’s not “Black Friday traffic.” It’s a family doing the math at the kitchen table.
An online store displays “Add to Cart.”
A person might ask, “Can I afford it this month?”
A clinic sees a “lead.”
A person might think, “Is this something serious?”
A real estate developer sees “form filled out.”
The man is looking at what may be the biggest purchase of his life.
We see conversions. They experience decisions.
Brands that understand this won’t just shout “50% off.” They’ll talk about real savings, about the products people actually need, and about safety. Promotions on essentials matter in Q4 precisely because they address a real problem.
▌B2B: Here, too, it’s people who make the deals
There’s a myth that B2B is rational, cold, and all about specifications and spreadsheets. But no company has ever signed a contract. The people in the company are the ones who signed it.
A BCG survey of more than 1,300 leaders shows that AI spending has risen from 1.7% to 3.3% of revenue, and 80% of it falls outside the IT budget. BCG’s recommendation speaks for itself: 70% of the effort should go toward people and processes, and only 30% toward technology. Even companies that invest heavily in AI know that success depends on people.
Here in Romania, Cris-Tim is acquiring Via Trend and Snack 4U, the largest sandwich manufacturer in Romania, with annual revenue of approximately 143 million lei and 380 employees. Behind such a transaction lie months of discussions and the trust built between the founders and the people whose futures depend on this decision.
Startup Nation 2026—with registration opening on October 6, grants of up to 250,000 lei, and 17,600 spots in courses for young people aged 18–29—is also all about people: future entrepreneurs who will need suppliers, consultants, and partners they can trust. In B2B, the sales cycle is longer precisely because the human stakes are higher. Those who choose the wrong supplier risk their jobs. Good B2B marketing doesn’t just sell the product—it alleviates the fear of the decision-maker.
▌Even Google needs a human in the loop
Perhaps the most telling sign comes from Google itself. The updated guidelines state that manual verification of AI-generated content is becoming “critical”: fact-checking and human review before publication, because models can “hallucinate.”
In other words, the company that builds some of the world’s most powerful AI models is telling you: don’t let AI speak for you. At the same time, Google is rolling out a new spam update in waves, with an impact on September 25–27 and again on September 30. Mass-produced content with no value for the reader is increasingly being targeted.
Rule for the content workflow: No AI-generated text leaves without being reviewed by an editor. AI helps you write faster. A human makes sure that what you write is accurate, useful, and sounds like you.
▌What you can do starting tomorrow morning
- It measures people, not clicks. Add UTMs to all your campaigns and link the data to your CRM. Always compare what the platform reports with what you see.
- Create a separate “AI” channel in GA4. Traffic from ChatGPT and Gemini is now tracked. Find out how many people are coming from there and whether they become customers.
- Check out what the AI says about you. Search for your brand on Google and in ChatGPT. Track the CTR for brand searches in Search Console.
- Invest with confidence. Real reviews, case studies with names and numbers, and real people from the team speaking publicly. That’s what both people and AI read.
- Keep the person in the loop. We use AI to speed things up, but every piece of text, response, or campaign is reviewed by someone who understands the client.
▌Even Google needs a human in the loop
AI is changing the way people find you: through summaries, recommendations, and virtual assistants. But at the end of the day, someone still has to trust you, make a decision, and pay. And trust can’t be automated.
The next time you look at a dashboard and see “1 conversion,” try to picture the person behind it. What problem did they have? What made them choose you? The answer to that question is worth more than any ad.
At re7, we believe that good marketing starts with people. If you want to find out who your customers really are and how to reach them in a world full of AI, let’s talk.
Sources: DemandSphere (AI Overviews), Adobe (holiday season forecast), BCG (survey of over 1,300 leaders), Google Search Central (guides and spam updates), minimis.imm.gov.ro (Startup Nation 2026). Add direct links before publication.
