Justin McGinnis

8:00 a.m.–8:45 a.m. PT — Wednesday, November 18, 2026

Keynote Panel: From Search to Suggestions: Repositioning Your Brand for the AI-Native Customer

For two decades, the search bar was the great equalizer—the one place a customer arrived neutral, ready to be won. That moment is disappearing. AI assistants now intercept discovery long before the click, returning a single synthesized answer with preferences and recommendations already baked in. Your customers aren't searching for you anymore; they're asking about you, and a model that never requested your permission is summarizing your brand narrative on your behalf. For senior marketers, this is more than a channel shift—it's a fundamental rethink of what brand presence, share of voice, and "ranking" even mean when the homepage may never get a visit.

This keynote panel brings together SEO, partnership, and product marketing leaders to unpack how brands earn the recommendation, not just the ranking, in an AI-mediated funnel. Expect a candid, practitioner-level conversation on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the credibility and entity signals that get a brand cited, and how to protect voice, accuracy, and attribution when AI sits between you and the customer. The throughline: vague positioning gets averaged out, while specific, defensible narratives get surfaced—making the AI-native era a forcing function for sharper marketing.

Key Takeaways

• Rethink visibility for a "zero-click" world where winning the AI recommendation matters more than winning the ranking.
• Unpack Generative Engine Optimization—the structured, authoritative content and consistent entity signals that get your brand cited inside the answer.
• Reposition brand and content to be machine-readable and recommendation-ready for a journey that may never touch your homepage.
• Leverage first-party data and strong partner ecosystems as a competitive moat once AI intermediates discovery.
• Measure brand influence directionally and repeatedly, tied to real prompts, so you can prove impact in an AI-mediated funnel.
• Sharpen your point of view into a specific, defensible narrative—because averaged-out positioning gets ignored while clear ones get surfaced.