The New Search Moment: How Retail Marketers Need To Rethink Discovery

Search doesn’t just start on Google anymore.

For more and more shoppers, it starts with a swipe on TikTok, a scroll through Instagram, or a typed question in ChatGPT. And when it comes to product discovery, those moments are starting to matter more than the browser. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT aren’t just experiments—they’re quickly becoming trusted commerce companions, helping users make shopping decisions earlier in the journey. Traditional search engines aren’t dead—they’re just no longer the default starting point for many shopping journeys.

That shift has big implications for retail marketers.

We’ve been trained to work in structured, measurable environments—campaigns defined by keywords, CPCs, feed quality, and ROAS. But today, those levers don’t tell the whole story. Consumers aren’t waiting to search. They’re discovering products earlier, in ways that don’t always include a click—or even an ad. Which means visibility can’t just be something you buy. It has to be something you build across a wider surface area.

Paid and organic search can no longer be defined solely by Google and Bing because the consumer journey now begins wherever attention lives—on TikTok, Amazon, ChatGPT, Instagram, emerging AI interfaces, and even voice assistants like Alexa and Siri. These platforms are not just discovery channels. They’re intent engines, surfacing product answers before users ever open a browser.

And they’re changing the rules faster than most teams can keep up.

Discovery is moving upstream

AI tools like ChatGPT now field over 517 million visits per month in the U.S. alone—surpassing Bing’s 376.6 million in December 2024. What used to be a job for search engines—comparison, validation, even recommendation—is now something consumers do with a single prompt. And these results aren’t just scraped from blogs. They’re curated using real-time retailer data, then refined by human editors to improve trust and ensure relevance.

At the same time, social platforms have become powerful intent indicators. 49% of Gen Z now starts their product discovery on TikTok or Instagram. This is no longer just a behavior trend—it’s a generational baseline. And while it’s easy to dismiss social-first discovery as top-funnel noise, the reality is that people are buying what they see, without ever entering a traditional search query.

Retail media’s role is shifting too. Amazon’s advertising revenue hit $56.2 billion in 2024, which now rivals or surpasses some of the original digital giants. This isn’t just about scale—it’s about trust. When shoppers are ready to act, they go to places that blend content and commerce seamlessly. Retailers have become search engines in their own right.

None of these changes are hypothetical. They’re already happening. And they’re changing where and how products get found.

What needs to change

This new landscape demands new thinking. We can’t just optimize for paid placements anymore. We need to rethink what visibility actually means—and how it gets earned across different discovery surfaces.

Here’s where I’m focused:

Get the product data right

It sounds basic, but it’s critical. Product content is the input for every discovery experience—whether it’s a search engine, a social carousel, or a generative response in an AI assistant. If your metadata is messy or incomplete, you’re invisible. That includes images, descriptions, attributes, and feeds—every field matters when the platform doesn’t give you a second chance.

Think beyond the ad unit

Most of these discovery channels aren’t pay-to-play. At least not yet. So content quality becomes the currency. Can your product surface organically in a list of recommended items? Can it be recognized and ranked by an AI interface? This isn’t about media dollars—it’s about informational value.

Treat measurement as a work in progress

It’s tempting to try to reconcile everything to last-click or a clean attribution model. But that’s not how people shop anymore. The better approach is to triangulate what’s working, even if it’s messy. Combine behavioral signals, test organic presence, look at influence across platforms—even when it doesn’t show up in the primary dashboard.

Get comfortable with less control

A lot of these platforms aren’t built for marketers. You don’t get to pick the placement or pay to move up the list. That’s frustrating. But it’s also freeing. It pushes us to invest in better content, clearer value props, and more relevant product data—the kind of stuff that scales across touchpoints.

Marketers are no longer simply bidding on keywords. We’re competing across a broader ecosystem—one that includes AI-generated answers, influencer-led discovery, retailer-native search, and voice-driven shopping moments. The job isn’t just about conversion. It’s about being credible, useful, and findable in more places than ever.

What we’re building toward

At Skai, we’re thinking about what this means holistically—not just as a search problem, but as a broader commerce challenge. The work we’re doing to unify data across retail media, paid search, and social platforms is already helping brands get closer to this new reality. It’s not about chasing every trend. It’s about staying rooted in how real discovery is actually happening—and making sure brands show up early, often, and well. That also means tailoring discovery strategies by audience—what works for Gen Z on TikTok may not apply to Gen X shoppers on Google or YouTube

Search isn’t a single input anymore. It’s a constellation of prompts, platforms, and content surfaces. Our role is to meet consumers in those moments—before the ad, before the keyword, before the purchase. That’s why we’re developing an AI Discovery Toolkit to help brands benchmark where they stand and strengthen product visibility across every emerging surface.

And if we can do that right, we don’t just follow the shift. We lead it.