Google is making ads more AI-native. ChatGPT is building a more measurable advertising ecosystem. And AI is increasingly becoming the place where people discover, compare, and decide.

Before you lock in your Q4 media budget, take a look at how your customers are actually searching today.

A few years ago, it was pretty straightforward: Search → Ad → Click → Website → Conversion

But things don’t work quite that way anymore. 

Just this week, Google highlighted new AI and agentic capabilities across Google Ads and Google Analytics, signaling that AI isn't simply being layered onto advertising.. It is becoming part of how campaigns are created, optimized, measured, and experienced.

And Google isn't alone.

OpenAI is expanding advertising capabilities inside ChatGPT, including product carousels and new attribution technology designed to make ChatGPT ads more useful to performance marketers.

And this is where things get really interesting. New reports suggest OpenAI is testing ads that could connect people directly with a business-specific AI agent. That’s a pretty big shift in how we think about the buyer journey.

Think about what that means for your Q4 strategy.

There's another development that makes this even more important.

A recent study examining Google searches with AI Overviews found that clicks to cited sources occurred in only about 1% of visits to AI Overviews. The researchers also found that AI Overviews were associated with fewer clicks and more browsing sessions ending on the search results page.

In other words: Your brand can influence the buyer without getting the click!

For years, we’ve focused heavily on clicks, impressions, and conversions. But what happens when someone discovers your brand through an AI-generated answer, considers you as an option, and never actually clicks through to your website?

That’s where some of our usual performance metrics start to get a little tricky.

Clicks and conversions still matter, of course. But they’re not necessarily telling us the whole story anymore. Sometimes, the influence happens before the click.

1. Make Your Positioning AI-Readable

This doesn't mean writing content for robots. It means making your positioning so clear that both humans and AI can understand it.

2. Stop Creating Content for Traffic Alone

If AI can answer a buyer’s question without sending them to your website, traffic can’t be the only measure of content success. Focus on building authority and preference. Answer real questions, share original insights, and use customer stories to show what you actually know.

3. Rethink What “Conversion” Means

If the next generation of ads can start an AI conversation instead of simply sending someone to a landing page, your conversion architecture needs to evolve too.

4. Don't Let AI Optimize a Broken Strategy

This is the part I want every CEO and CMO to remember. AI can make your marketing faster. It can’t make bad positioning good. It can generate content, analyze performance, automate workflows, and optimize campaigns.

But it doesn’t know why customers choose you or what will set you apart. That still takes human judgment, experience, and strategy.

Here’s a B2B GTM move worth watching.

This week, Demandbase and DemandWorks announced an integration designed to close the gap between account intelligence and campaign activation. Instead of identifying high-intent accounts and leaving marketers to figure out what to do next, the integration can automatically activate those accounts across channels.

Why does this matter? Because acting on the right signal at the right time is the most effective way to scale. For Q4, this is a good reminder to look at your own GTM process.

I really enjoyed this conversation with Wael Elsahhar of MidLyr.

We talked about something I know a lot of leaders are thinking about right now: how do you actually put AI to work in a regulated environment?

We got into where to start, how to know when your organization is ready, and how to automate complex workflows without losing the oversight and accountability that financial services require.

There were a lot of good takeaways from this one, and I really enjoyed the discussion.

If you haven’t listened yet, give it a listen. And if you know someone who’s thinking through AI adoption in a regulated industry, send it their way.

A few stops on my calendar that I’m really looking forward to. 

I’ll be attending these events over the next few weeks:

📍 Fintech South — August 18 | Atlanta, GA

One of the Southeast’s biggest fintech gatherings, bringing together leaders across fintech, payments, banking, and financial services.

📍 Fintech Week SF— September 29-October 1 | San Francisco

Focused on the future of financial services, innovation, and the technologies changing the industry.

I’m looking forward to learning from the people in the room, sharing what I’m seeing through the lens of GTM and growth, and (hopefully) having some great conversations along the way.

If you’re attending any of these, let’s connect.

Come find me, say hello, and tell me what you’re working on.

There’s a lot of excitement around AI and what it’s doing to GTM. And honestly, some of it is pretty exciting. But I think it’s important to pause and ask: are we using all this new technology to create more work, or better results?

At AScaleX, the goal has always been the latter. We’ve seen the impact firsthand, including $2M+ in pipeline generated from a single integrated campaign.

So before you lock in your Q4 plans, look past the tools and trends for a minute.

Look at the numbers. Look at what’s working. And put your energy behind the things that can actually move the business. That’s the work that matters.

- Angelique