Search used to be simple: a question, a page of blue links and a fight to win the click. Brand discovery was essentially a story about rankings, keywords and referral traffic. That's no longer how people find answers. As AI assistants and generative search become the first place people turn to for information, many buyers are getting what they need before they ever reach a website.
ChatGPT has a new feature allowing users to browse and shop products directly through AI-generated recommendations, without a search engine, shopping site, or even a scroll. It's the biggest shift in digital commerce since the algorithm killed the homepage. And if brands don't adapt fast, they'll be left behind in a conversation they're no longer part of. This isn't just about ecommerce. It's about how people choose what matters.
Social media has officially hit supermajority status. New data shows there are now 5.66 billion social media user identities worldwide-equivalent to 68.7% of the global population. That means social media users now outnumber non-users two to one. The milestone, released in Digital 2026 from Meltwater and We Are Social, comes as digital behaviors evolve rapidly, with more people spending their time online in new and changing ways. Over the past year alone, social media added more than 259 million new user identities, a 4.8% increase.
For more than a decade, marketing has been dominated by paid ads, display campaigns, and social media boosts. While these strategies offer immediate exposure, their results are fleeting. Once the budget is gone, so is the visibility. In contrast, syndicated content creates a permanent, discoverable asset that not only lives online indefinitely but also fuels both human search engines and the emerging wave of AI-powered platforms.
