AI Tech / news
Chinese Brands Face New Challenge: Winning Over AI Agents
As AI agents increasingly shape consumer discovery and purchasing decisions, Chinese brands must pivot from social media marketing to earning the trust of these autonomous systems. The shift demands new strategies that go beyond traditional playbooks.
Industry experts at the Cannes Lions festival highlighted that agentic AI represents a quantum leap from generative AI, with these personal concierges now autonomously making choices for users based on deep, personalized understanding. Rather than simply answering queries, AI agents can plan entire experiences—from booking travel to selecting restaurants—by balancing price, quality, reliability, sustainability and individual preferences, a concept known as personality pairing.
The challenge for Chinese companies, which have mastered social media engagement and search engine optimization, is that brand influence is eroding. Brand identity is increasingly being shaped not by marketers’ intentions but by what AI agents generate and reinforce, often without brand awareness.
Consumers, weary of manual click-throughs, are turning to AI agents for curated recommendations, embedding commerce into every aspect of the user experience. This shift means that to unlock further brand awareness, firms must appeal directly to these AI systems.
The strategies and tools for agentic AI are fundamentally different from those used for social media. The central issue, as discussed at Cannes, is how to regain control over the answers that shape consumer choice. Chinese brands must now learn to win the trust of AI agents that will increasingly determine what consumers discover, consider and ultimately buy.