A brand journey is the full arc of a brand’s interactions with consumers and others, starting with initial discovery and continuing through brand loyalty and advocacy. It includes the experiences of everyone who comes into contact with your brand, from casual browsers to devoted advocates, from employees to stakeholders. Although it includes many individual touch-points, it is the overall shape of the journey that makes or breaks the brand experience.
In the digital and AI age, much of the journey is beyond the brand’s direct control. Customers leave reviews, content producers create “unboxing” videos, and influencers amplify the latest trends. More recently, AI search tools are replacing traditional search engines as the way consumers receive information about products and services.
Still, many organizations hold on to a “top-down and hierarchical” process, according to Forbes. “The traditional model would have one brand manager as sole guardian of a company’s brand identity, overseeing every customer-facing campaign, product, and communication[.]” But as channels multiply and consumers create their own stories, the old model is becoming obsolete.
In its place, brands need to build a collaborative organization that makes “ownership of brand governance everybody’s business,” according to Forbes. The collaborative model provides resources and guidance rather than mandates and rules to be followed.
CEOs and boards of directors also need to invite outside brand strategists and branding experts who can audit their brands with detached, real-world perspectives, to “read the label of the jar you are in”, so to speak (in the words of Joanne Z Tan).
Too often I hear CEOs brush off these true experts by saying: “Oh, we have our own marketing department.” They don’t know the importance of an outside expert’s vantage point, or the value of their focused areas of expertise, which are not available at most internal marketing departments.
Brands can adapt by learning to share the journey. In this article, we will examine how to navigate the changing landscape and shape your brand journey in the AI age.
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The rise of AI search. One-third of all web traffic now comes from AI chatbots and agents, and AI search is growing by 150% month-over-month. A full 87% of AI assisted traffic comes from ChatGPT, according to a 2026 study by BrightEdge Consulting reported in Forbes.
AI assistants are “doing deeper dives into all of the content that answers a specific query, including sites like YouTube and Reddit,” according to the article. The practical effect is that brands can no longer keep their messaging in protected “silos.” “The information that can persuade the customer to pick your brand might not even be on your website,” says BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu.
AI and B2B. The same thing is happening in B2B transactions, according to Alex Roy Rajan, CEO of SalesboxAI, in another Forbes interview. “Purchase decisions happen through a buying group,” Rajan states. “Until very recently, that buying group was all human, but that’s not true anymore.”
Now AI assistants are doing much of the research for B2B buying groups. “It’s very important from an AI visibility perspective for the marketer to make sure information – the pricing comparison, et cetera – is available for those [AI] agents,” says Rajan.
Winning the race for “share of model.” We took a deep dive into AI search and brand agents in a recent article on AI search and SOM. In short, the goal for brands is to gain “share of model (SOM),” which measures how often a brand is mentioned by large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude.
LLMs and other AI assistants differ from traditional search engines, which are optimized for online attention. By contrast, AI-assisted search is optimized for resolution. That is, answering specific user queries. Brands need to educate these AI search tools by:
In the AI age, brand journey has evolved from a closely controlled to a co-created experience among the brand messengers, storytellers, and its audience.
Building your audience. According to marketing analytics firm Kantar “brands derive only 25% of their equity from communications such as paid media. The remaining 75% comes from the experiences that customers have with the brand[.]” Broadly speaking, brand equity is the sum of consumer thoughts, feelings, and attitudes towards your brand that influence their willingness to purchase.
To gain attention, brands can start by meeting consumers’ “functional and emotional needs,” per Kantar. But to make a lasting impression, brands need to show a “meaningful difference” from the competition. That requires “designing experiences that reflect the essence of the brand and creating meaningful, brand reinforcing memories – in other words, meaningfully different branded experiences.” (Emphasis added.)
Creating experiences that resonate with customers starts with brand positioning to understand your audience’s needs and wants, and how your unique value proposition (or brand DNA) aligns with their needs and wants. Delivering on your brand’s promises is the step that builds brand trust, which is just as important as price and quality when consumers pick products and services.
Co-creating the brand journey. In the age of user content and online influencers, successful brands realize that they can shape but not control the brand journey. And, as the Branding Journal writes, sometimes “the audience takes the wheel.” In those cases, brands need to adapt quickly and join the ride.
One recent example is the transformation of Diet Coke from a low-calorie, health conscious treat to “the rocket fuel of machismo America’s working habits,” as the Financial Times writes. Diet Coke found its way into a market niche (“grind culture”) that it hadn’t targeted, thanks to young professionals trying to emulate the likes of Elon Musk.
A classic example is the transformation of Nike’s Air Jordan sneakers from high-performance athletic gear into a fashion statement and lifestyle product: “Hip-hop artists and streetwear culture transformed the sneaker into a status symbol” and collectible, per the Branding Journal.
Similarly, Apple’s iPhone quickly shifted from a communications “Swiss Army knife” to a tool for personal expression and the “creator culture,” used for filmmaking, music production, and more. At the same time, the iPhone gained traction as a status symbol and sign of affluence.
Nike and Apple quickly pivoted to capture the moment – without sacrificing their core brand identities. For example, “Without losing its technical focus, Nike engaged in a state of play with its audience to drive endlessly creative and lucrative results,” according to the Branding Journal.
Apple also leaned into the iPhone’s cultural transformation, “launching its ‘Shot on iPhone’ campaign, refining its camera technology, and emphasizing its creative potential, while maintaining its identity as a premium, high-performance product.”
In other words, these iconic brands allowed their audiences to co-create the brand journey without losing their authentic vision, values, and purpose.
In the AI age, gone are the “good old days” when companies were self-contained entities doing everything in-house from soup to nuts. If you are not taking advantage of outside expertise, you are giving that advantage to your competitors. AI is leveling the playing field.
Brands face a dilemma. They need to maintain a consistent brand image, brand persona, and brand voice across multiple channels. But at the same time, they need the flexibility to react to consumer trends. Quick reaction time is more important than ever in an age of viral moments.
Internally, providing a central hub of information on the latest brand messaging, design, and guidelines gives more employees the ability to become brand guardians. The Forbes authors write, “The brands that successfully trust their people to take this step will be the ones that turn one brand manager into an army of brand guardians.”
Externally, mobilize and leverage outside resources to enhance your brand journey with unique, memorable brand experiences. Engage with and retain external brand strategists and branding experts who bring different points of view and in-depth expertise.
Like Steve Jobs, who was always hands-on with the look and feel of every Apple product, from font style, to the rounded corner of iPhone, to the Apple Store’s flooring color…, CEOs today must be personally involved in working with external and internal brand experts, to design experience and improve brand journey. It is one of the single most important ways to win in the AI Age.
The brand journey is evolving from a closely managed effort to a collaborative, even crowd-sourced, enterprise. Successful organizations in this new environment will learn to share the road with brand advocates, customers, employees, and brand experts outside your organizations.
If you would like to learn more about shaping your brand journey, please contact us.
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Joanne Z. Tan is the Founder & CEO of 10 Plus Brand, Inc. Joanne is a globally recognized brand strategist, thought leadership coach, content & branding expert, and speaker. She helps founders, CEOs, executives, board members, leaders, entrepreneurs, and organizations decode their Brand DNA, elevate merely successful businesses to become powerful brands in the AI age. Joanne was trained in law and business, and had a liberal arts education from Brandeis University before earning a law degree. Her coaching emphasizes comprehensive strategies, business modeling, multidisciplinary thought leadership and high authority content creation, brand building, culture, GTM, user experience design, and AIXD (AI experience design). A former journalist, award-winning photographic artist, Joanne is also a poet, writer, and an avid wilderness backpacker.
© Joanne Z. Tan, 2026. All rights reserved.
