The era of Google Search dominance may be nearing an end for many marketing professionals, as the majority of the industry anticipates a shift toward AI assistants as the primary customer discovery channel.
Data released by ACCESS Newswire from the HubSpot UNBOUND 2026 conference shows that only 11% of marketers expect Google Search to be the main starting point for customers within the next two years. Instead, 71% of respondents identified AI assistants as the primary channel for discovery by 2028.
Financial resources are already being redirected to meet this shift. Approximately 80% of marketers are increasing or starting new budgets for AI search visibility next year, with 29% moving funds out of paid media to cover the costs.
The transition is also altering the nature of marketing work. The survey revealed that 91% of respondents experienced changes to their professional roles in the past 12 months. Two-thirds of those professionals integrated new artificial intelligence responsibilities into their current duties rather than waiting for organizational restructuring.
New habits are also emerging among practitioners. Nearly 70% of marketers now regularly verify whether AI-generated answers cite their brands, a task that was virtually non-existent three years ago.
Despite the momentum, measurement capabilities are still catching up to the technology. While 43% of marketers use existing tools to track brand visibility in AI answers, another 46% rely on manual prompting to check results. As a result, 43% of respondents cited the ability to prove return on investment as their most significant concern for the coming year.
The findings were based on a survey of marketing professionals in Boston, primarily consisting of brand-side marketers and employees of mid-sized companies with 51 to 1,000 employees.
