What to do when “word of mouth” becomes “word of ChatGPT” 👾
How brands should prepare for product discovery that is AI-centered
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Hi there! You’re reading the Bonfire newsletter from Kevan Lee & Shannon Deep. Each week, we highlight brand, marketing, and creative learnings from our experience as in-house marketers turned agency owners who think a lot about creativity, our relationship to work, and how all of that impacts our identities. We’ll also feature insights from our digital community of super smart folks (which you’re welcome to join).
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From friends to feeds
As recently as last year, the #1 source of new product discovery was word of mouth.
Today, 47% of US consumers use generative AI for product recommendations. And the number is growing fast, both in the US and around the world.
It is not hard to imagine a future where purchase decisions flow through AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. This goes for everything from consumer products to B2B software. At the present moment, the influence of AI chatbots is one of a handful of meaningful datapoints people collect before they buy. To put things in perspective: Five years ago, you might have Googled some options, talked to your colleagues, and emailed a friend. Today, you are hopping on Reddit, scrolling your socials, and querying the AI concierge. Five years from now? It’s AI reccos piped straight into your Meta goggles.
So what’s a pressed-for-results marketer supposed to do?
Well one thing’s for sure …
Brand-building will not go away (he said, sanguinely).
Brand-building will, in fact, expand. What is brand if not a totality of touchpoints. And what does AI do best if not consume this content—touchpoints, reputation, perception, etc.—then synthesize and repackage? If AI is trained to regurgitate reality, then brand-builders should continue to build and shape the realities for their companies. We just have to keep in mind that humans aren’t the only ones watching our every brand move now.
With this in mind, here is some food for thought about what to focus on as you build for friends and feeds in 2025 and beyond.
1 - Optimize for AI discovery
If chatbots are becoming the new gatekeepers, then your content needs to be AI-readable and recommendation-friendly. This means:
Structuring your website content clearly and semantically
Offering trustworthy, well-cited information
Earning backlinks from reputable sources and aggregated lists
Providing concise, value-packed summaries that LLMs can easily parse and quote
There is a whole burgeoning field around GEO / LLMO, which is the generative AI flavor of traditional SEO. Please do Google it (or ChatGPT it, fittingly) to learn more. One of my favorite resources is this one from SEO.ai, which pairs nicely with this “actually it’s all just SEO” writeup from Ahrefs.
The good news is that a lot of best practices for GEO are the same as the best practices for SEO. Think of GEO as another layer of your content strategy, but a quite pedantic one: GEO cares about semantic language, readability, citation, crawlability, and authority signaling. No keyword stuffing needed!
2 - Build brand signals that AI recognizes
Generative AI tools don’t operate in a vacuum. They pull from structured data, reviews, and content patterns. That means your brand reputation and digital footprint matter more than ever. Accumulate user reviews, encourage brand mentions in forums and publications, and nurture communities that discuss your product in detail.
It’s almost like you’re using word of mouth to influence “word of ChatGPT.” [Insert Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme]
This is also where a great PR strategy can combine with technical marketing for extra oomph. The more your brand is seen as a trusted expert in a given niche, the more likely an AI is to surface you as a top pick.
3 - Embrace conversational content
Buyers are literally talking to machines. So your content should mimic the tone, format, and cadence of those conversations. Create FAQs, write in a Q&A format, and publish conversational explainers.
#1 tip: Use tools like ChatGPT yourself to see how your product is positioned and what gaps exist in how it's described or understood. Then go and build the conversational content to address these gaps.
4 - Reinvent word of mouth for the AI age
Word of mouth isn’t gone. It’s just migrating to new channels. Today’s referrals happen in public Slack groups, Discords, and LinkedIn comments—and yes, even in the way someone frames a query to an AI bot. Your job is to plant the seeds for those conversations.
Host thoughtful discussions. Create content that people quote. Partner with niche influencers and thought leaders who have organic trust. Then monitor the conversations for where you’re being mentioned—and how.
5 - Measure differently
Lastly, rethink what "attribution" means. With AI in the mix, you’ll rarely get a neat path from ad click to conversion. Look at leading indicators like branded search lift, share of voice in AI responses, or inclusion in chatbot-generated lists. Create KPIs that reward influence, not just clicks.
Over to you
What have you been working on / struggling with re: AI search these days? How has word of mouth changed for your business? What types of recs are you asking from your chatbot? We’d love to know!
Notable links, convos, and events
You can see all this and more in the Campout community.
Check out this thread for some Spotify playlist inspiration! Lots of interesting genres and artists.
There’s a brand new personal voice workbook available in the template library. Based on our AI session with Meg Moore, the workbook shows you how to work with your fave AI tool—Claude, ChatGPT, etc.—to identify and refine your unique voice that feels authentic and aligned with your taste. Results are fascinating!
But wait! There’s more…
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