Marketing distribution has had three structural eras: broadcast (one-to-many, 1920–1995), narrowcast (one-to-segment, 1995–2023), and no-cast (AI-mediated, one-to-question, 2023–).
In the no-cast era, the brand is summarised, cited and recommended by an AI assistant in response to a question the brand never sees.
~38% of UK consumer information journeys in Q2 2026 already include at least one assistant query before purchase. Up from <5% two years ago.
The 2026 marketing job is to be the brand the AI cites, not the brand that buys the impression. That requires a different operating model and a different measurement stack.