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The Australian Centre for AI in Marketing has released research arguing that brands must now be chosen by both artificial intelligence systems and consumers. The study found 39 per cent of Australians had used generative AI to help choose a brand, product or service.
The report says the first stage of the customer journey is becoming less visible to marketers as more consumers use AI tools to research purchases. As a result, brands may be ruled out before customers make their final choice.
The findings come from The Navigators' AI Brandscape 2026 study of 1,736 Australians. While the research points to growing use of AI in product and service selection, it also suggests consumers remain cautious about letting the technology take full control.
Just 11 per cent of respondents said they would allow AI to make a purchase decision, even in low-stakes categories. That gap between using AI for research and giving it decision-making authority sits at the centre of the report's argument: marketers need to understand which tasks consumers are willing to delegate and where they still want direct control.
Louise Cummins, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of ACAM, said: "When customers use AI to research a purchase, brands have to be chosen twice. First by the customer's AI, which you can influence but not control, and then by the customer. If a brand does not make the AI's shortlist, it may never get the chance to make the case.
"The implication for marketers is significant. We need to understand what information AI uses to make recommendations, how our brands appear in those recommendations and what ultimately earns the customer's trust."
Delegation limits
The report says consumers are delegating individual tasks to AI rather than entire customer journeys. ACAM describes that behaviour through what it calls a Customer Delegation Framework, built around four questions: whether AI can do the job, whether it is worth it, whether the customer remains in charge, and whether using it has become socially normal.
Customers are more likely to hand over tasks when AI offers clear usefulness and convenience, according to ACAM. Concerns about control, trust and social acceptance continue to limit broader adoption.
Separate research cited in the report points to similar limits. Data from Twilio and YouGov found that 78 per cent of people had used AI-powered customer service, but only 39 per cent were satisfied with the experience, while 84 per cent wanted an easy way to transfer to a person.
Cummins added: "Customers hand AI a task, not a journey, and they set the limits. Successful brands will understand where customers welcome AI, where they want to stay in control and when they need a person. That means designing the hand-back to a human as carefully as the automated experience. If the customer has to start again when they move from AI to a person, the brand has failed to connect the experience."
Marketing maturity
The research also points to a gap between the speed of change in consumer behaviour and the preparedness of marketing teams. ACAM's 2026 AI in Marketing Benchmark, conducted with Kantar, found that 83 per cent of participating Australian organisations were at levels one to three on ACAM's six-level AI marketing maturity scale.
None of the organisations assessed reached levels five or six, suggesting more advanced use of AI in marketing remains limited. For many teams, the next step will be redesigning customer journeys around tasks customers are willing to delegate, rather than focusing only on individual AI tools, ACAM says.
The report includes a 90-day plan for marketing leaders and draws on Australian examples from Budget Direct, ANZ, Telstra and Woolworths. It also includes interviews with marketing executives including ANZ's Sian Chadwick and SBS's Uma Oldham.
Adobe supported the report, and Duncan Egan, Vice President of Enterprise Marketing, Asia Pacific and Japan at Adobe, said the shift requires a different approach from brands.
"Now that marketing teams have two audiences to win, the focus needs to shift from simply creating campaigns to orchestrating connected experiences. This means creating content that is emotionally resonant for people, structured and trusted for AI, and activated in real time across the right touchpoints. AI can power that orchestration by connecting content, data and journeys to adapt each interaction at scale, while people remain in control of the strategy, brand and customer relationship," Egan said.
The publication is the third in ACAM's research programme, following earlier work on the future of marketing teams and a separate benchmark study on AI marketing maturity. Its central finding is that, as AI becomes a routine part of consumer research, marketers are being pushed to understand not only how customers choose brands, but also how machines narrow those choices before people see them.