DNY

Speaker appreciation post! Grateful to have had Colin Foster (TheNextPractice) and Noah Gorsky (ZeroClick) join our CSO Matt Baker for our latest DNY Unpack session on The New Customer Journey. Two sharp, generous minds who helped cut through the noise and get to what really matters for brands right now. A few standout moments: ⚫️ “We’ve moved from search inputs to AI answers.” Discovery increasingly happens inside the answer, not on a website. Visibility ≠ traffic anymore. ⚫️ “If your story isn’t consistent, AI will infer one for you.” LLMs reward clarity, structure, and third-party validation. Your ecosystem matters as much as your site. ⚫️ “Paid is entering the answer layer.” AI interfaces are becoming intent surfaces; deeper, more contextual, and surprisingly efficient. ⚫️ “Organic establishes belief. Paid accelerates demand.” Together, they form a new acquisition flywheel for the AI era. Huge appreciation to Colin, Noah, and everyone who joined us. More to come as we continue unpacking how AI is reshaping the customer journey. #Unpackseries #AIinmarketing #Customerjourney #GEO #genAI #searchmarketing

Our latest DNY Unpack session focused on one of the biggest shifts happening in marketing right now: the changing customer journey in an AI-driven world. You can watch the whole session here - https://lnkd.in/eRtiaWTK What became clear very quickly is that this isn’t just an evolution of search, it’s a re-ordering of how discovery, consideration, and decision-making now happen. A few takeaways that stuck with us from the session: - From search to answers: We’re moving from keyword-based search to AI-driven “asking.” In LLM environments, discovery increasingly happens inside the answer itself, often without a click. Visibility no longer guarantees traffic, which forces brands to rethink how influence is created. - Organic visibility now means being machine-readable: As Colin Foster (TheNextPractice) shared, LLMs reward clarity, structure, and consistency. Brands that win are treating their content less like a brochure and more like an API; clean information architecture, structured data, concise value props, and FAQs written the way real people actually ask questions. - Third-party validation matters more than ever: AI models don’t just trust what brands say about themselves. Earned media, reviews, and creator content often outweigh first-party claims. If you’re not controlling your narrative across the ecosystem, AI will infer one for you. - Paid media is entering the answer layer: Noah Gorsky (ZeroClick) walked through how paid activation is already emerging inside AI interfaces, think programmatic for AI. Brands can now meet users inside moments of intent, even when no click occurs, with early signals showing strong ROI from highly pre-qualified demand. - A new acquisition stack is forming: Organic and ecosystem signals establish what models believe about your brand and paid activation accelerates access to high-intent demand. Together, they create a new acquisition flywheel for the AI era. The biggest takeaway? This isn’t a technical conversation, it’s a commercial one. Brands that adapt early won’t just keep pace; they’ll help define the next phase of digital discovery. Huge thanks to Matt Baker for moderating and to Colin Foster and Noah Gorsky for grounding the conversation in real-world strategy. And thanks to everyone who joined and contributed, Unpack only works because of the collective insight in the room. More to come as we continue unpacking the evolving customer journey and reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to connect to discuss further. #Unpackseries #AI #customerjourney #marketingstrategy #AIinmarketing

We're looking forward to hosting an evening of insights and celebration with industry leaders, marketeers, partners and colleagues as we look to wrap up the year on a high with our final Unpack Series of 2025 taking place tomorrow, December 9th. Swing by the DNY offices at 5 PM ET to stay out of the cold, grab some food & drinks, enjoy some festive vibes, and catch a brilliant panel with Matt Baker, Colin Foster and Noah Gorsky. It's not too late to register - https://lnkd.in/ea3vDcRn Online Teams Webinar - https://lnkd.in/edPQtUSe Let’s finish the year strong - see you there! DNY, TheNextPractice, ZeroClick #unpackseries #LLMMarketing #aiinmarketing #searchmarketing #GEO

Search is changing faster than marketers can keep up with and the customer journey is changing with it. At our next DNY UNPACK event, we’re diving into the evolution of search and what LLM-driven behavior means for brands today with Matt Baker @ DNY, Colin Foster @ TheNextPractice and Noah Gorsky @ ZeroClick. Search is no longer a box you type into. - It’s a conversation. - It’s an assistant. - It’s a curator. And for many consumers, it’s now the start of every journey. We’ll explore: • How LLMs are reshaping discovery • Why “practicality vs. specificity” matters in modern search • What brands must rethink to stay visible, relevant, and chosen If you want to understand where your customers actually begin and how AI is changing the rules, you won’t want to miss this one. - Register for in person: https://lnkd.in/ea3vDcRn - Register for online webinar: https://lnkd.in/edPQtUSe #LLMMarketing #Search #AI #UnpackSeries #AiInMarketing

@DNY is continuing its UnPack Series by digging into how AI is rewiring discovery, decision, and purchase. It's next Tuesday, details below!

We're a week away from our next Unpack event, where we'll be diving into how AI is reshaping the customer journey. While no one has the full playbook yet, we expect a valuable discussion grounded in real-world examples of how discovery, data, and transaction are being redefined by AI. To stay updated on future sessions, follow and subscribe to The DNY Drop on Substack. (If you don’t see the emails, check your spam folder and mark us as a trusted sender.) https://lnkd.in/ehHT6E8e Register to the in person event - https://lnkd.in/ea3vDcRn Register to the Teams Webinar - https://lnkd.in/edPQtUSe #aiinmarketing #unpackseries #genai #geo #ai

Our next installment of the Unpack Series is taking place Tuesday, December 9th at 5.45pm ET. Join us online using the Teams Webinar Link detailed on the event page and here - https://lnkd.in/edPQtUSe We'll be diving into AI's impact on the New Customer Journey. Every brand is starting to feel it; the quiet rewiring of how people find, evaluate, and buy. Search is becoming a conversation and discovery is moving from exploration to guided recommendation. Commerce is collapsing into single, predictive moments. The familiar funnel is still there, but it’s flattening fast. We’ll explore how those shifts are beginning to reshape the consumer journey, from discovery and e-commerce to experience design and data strategy. What happens when your customer doesn’t search but asks? When the buying moment happens inside a model, not a store? And when the data that describes your audience starts training the systems that mediate them? Designed for brand and marketing leaders, this conversation brings together builders and strategists working at the edge of these changes, to separate hype from signal, and to start mapping what an AI-shaped journey really means for acquisition, loyalty, and brand visibility in the years ahead. #ai #unpackseries #AIinmarketing #brandstrategy

Now’s the time to Unpack the new customer journey to help brand and commerce leaders understand how it is being reprogrammed by AI — not through hype, but through the practical systems that now sit between intent and action. Our next Unpack session plans on giving a real-world view of how discovery, data, and transaction are being rebuilt by AI systems. Agenda: - December 9th, 5pm ET (104 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018) - Networking and Light Bites: 5pm - 5.45pm - Panel Discussion: 5.45pm - 6.45pm - Networking and closing: 6.45pm - 8pm - Reserve your spot via Eventbrite: https://lnkd.in/ea3vDcRn - To join online, register to the Teams Webinar: https://lnkd.in/eNGBYwcM Event Overview Every brand is starting to feel it; the quiet rewiring of how people find, evaluate, and buy. Search is becoming a conversation and discovery is moving from exploration to guided recommendation. Commerce is collapsing into single, predictive moments. The familiar funnel is still there, but it’s flattening fast. We’ll explore how those shifts are beginning to reshape the consumer journey, from discovery and e-commerce to experience design and data strategy. What happens when your customer doesn’t search but asks? When the buying moment happens inside a model, not a store? And when the data that describes your audience starts training the systems that mediate them? Designed for brand and marketing leaders, this conversation brings together builders and strategists working at the edge of these changes, to separate hype from signal, and to start mapping what an AI-shaped journey really means for acquisition, loyalty, and brand visibility in the years ahead. #unpackseries #genai #aiinmarketing #cutomerjourney #brandbuilding

The McKinsey report - Winning in the Age of AI - makes one thing clear: the front door to the internet has changed. If your brand still thinks search equals Google results, you’re looking through yesterday’s keyhole. Because today many decisions start in a conversation with an AI agent, not a search bar. At DNY we believe that brand building is no longer just about people; it’s about people and their proxies. That means recognizing that the real decision‑making layer includes algorithms, feeds, creator voices and AI agents. For brands to succeed in this era they must operate across our 3Ms framework: Minds, Models, Moments. Minds: Human strategists, creatives, and interpreters who bring judgement and cultural IQ. AI doesn’t replace them, it demands sharper ones. Models: The algorithms and engines driving discovery. Your brand must be machine-readable, structured for retrieval, and designed to influence generative outputs. Moments: The instant a proxy makes the call that “moment” used to be a click, now it’s a recommendation before search even happens. What it means for brand builders: Visibility isn’t just about ranking; it’s about being retrievable by machines and resonant to humans. Discovery is shaped by creators, forums, metadata, and structured content, not just backlinks and SEM. AI agents are not passive. They choose. Brands need to architect for machine-first moments. Leadership alignment and creative intuition still matter… a lot. That’s the “Minds” in our model. The opportunity is now Brand marketers need to be aware of the estimated $750 billion in spending routed through AI search by 2028. The window to influence how your brand is encoded into machine memory is narrow (the warning is - being late matters). Once decisions happen behind the curtain of an AI agent, you’re no longer competing for clicks, you’re competing for attention inside a model. At DNY we’re helping brands build with proxies, not just consumers, because the brand of the future is not just remembered, it’s retrievable. And it doesn’t just win a mind - it wins a machine. If you’re ready to move beyond SEO and into a strategy that works across Minds, Models and Moments, let’s talk.

Rethinking risk in research: When people talk about synthetic data, they usually focus on the risks. But what if we flipped that? In this Unpack clip, Peter Weinberg shares why synthetic data might actually be the tool your brand needs to mitigate risk, especially when making big strategic bets or entering new markets. Check out the clip from our Unpack session. #syntheticdata #brandstrategy #AImarketing #unpackseries #genAI