Something is shifting in how people find products before they buy them.
It is not a sudden change. It is a gradual one. But for D2C brands that rely on being discovered at the right moment, it is worth paying attention to now rather than later.
More and more people are turning to AI tools before they make a purchase. Not to buy, but to research. To ask questions, compare options, understand what to look for, and narrow down a decision before they ever visit a brand’s website or click an ad.
That shift has implications for how D2C brands think about discovery, and how they make sure they are part of the conversation happening before a customer ever enters their funnel.
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How Product Discovery Used to Work
For the past decade, product discovery for D2C brands has followed a reasonably predictable pattern. A customer sees an ad on social media and is introduced to a brand. They search on Google to validate it. They read some reviews. They visit the website. They buy, or they do not.
Paid social drove awareness. Search captured intent. The two worked together, and brands that understood how to operate across both generally found a way to grow.
That model has not disappeared. But it is being complicated by a new behaviour that sits at the beginning of the journey, before the ad and before the search.
The Research Conversation Is Moving
A growing number of consumers, particularly those making considered purchases, are starting their research with an AI tool rather than a search engine.
Instead of typing “best running shoes for flat feet” into Google and clicking through a list of results, they are asking ChatGPT or a similar tool a more conversational question. “I have flat feet and I run about three times a week. What should I look for in a running shoe and which brands are worth considering?”
The response they get is synthesised. It does not return a list of links to scroll through. It gives them a considered answer, often with specific recommendations, drawn from whatever the AI has learned about the category.
For D2C brands, this matters for one simple reason: if your brand is not part of the answer an AI gives to a relevant question, you are not part of that customer’s consideration set before they have even started looking in earnest.
What AI Tools Are Drawing On
Understanding why this matters requires understanding, at least broadly, how AI tools form their answers.
They draw on a large body of text from across the internet. Articles, reviews, guides, forums, editorial content. Brands that are written about clearly, authoritatively, and in the language that customers actually use when asking questions about a category are more likely to appear in the answers AI tools generate.
This is not the same as traditional SEO, where the goal is to rank for specific keyword searches. It is something closer to building genuine authority on a subject. AI tools tend to surface brands and content that demonstrate clear expertise, that answer real questions thoroughly, and that appear consistently across credible sources.
For D2C brands, the implication is that the content you produce, the way you talk about your category, and the questions you answer publicly all contribute to whether you appear in the AI-assisted research conversations your potential customers are having.
The Consideration Cycle Is Getting Longer and More Informed
There is another implication worth sitting with. When customers use AI tools to research before purchasing, they arrive at the decision point more informed than they would have been otherwise.
They have already asked the hard questions. They know what to look for. They have a clearer sense of what separates one brand from another in the category. And they are less likely to be swayed by surface-level marketing that does not speak to what they now know.
This raises the bar for how D2C brands communicate. A customer who has spent ten minutes asking an AI about your category before finding your brand is not a blank slate. They have context. They have questions. And the brand that answers those questions most honestly and specifically is the one most likely to convert them.
This connects directly to the moment question. A customer arriving from an AI-assisted research journey is in a specific state of mind. They are informed, they are close to a decision, and they need something precise to move them. The creative and messaging that meets them at that moment needs to reflect where they actually are, not where a generic funnel assumes they are.
What This Means in Practice
None of this means abandoning what works. Paid media still drives discovery. Search still captures intent. The fundamentals of performance marketing have not been replaced.
What is changing is the layer that sits before all of that for a growing number of customers. The research conversation that used to happen on Google or not at all is increasingly happening with an AI tool. And the brands that are present in that conversation, that have built enough authority and clarity around their category to be part of the answer, will have an advantage that compounds over time.
For D2C brands thinking about this now, the most useful questions are straightforward. What are the real questions your potential customers are asking before they buy? Are you answering those questions clearly and publicly anywhere? And does the content you produce reflect the depth of understanding that would make an AI tool confident enough to reference you?
Those are not technical questions. They are strategic ones. And the brands that start thinking about them now are building a presence in a channel that most of their competitors have not yet noticed.
The Graygency is a performance marketing agency for D2C brands. We practise True Performance Marketing to identify micro-moments, building targeted creative for those moments, and constructing growth systems that compound over time.
