As a Head of Marketing, you are facing an undeniable reality today: the public’s adoption of conversational Artificial Intelligence (like ChatGPT and Gemini) is not a passing trend. It is a tsunami.

While companies discuss implementation, budgets, and risks, your end customer is already elsewhere. They are already using these tools for personal, informational, and decision-making purposes .

This creates the “GEN AI divide”: a dangerous strategic gap between a market that uses AI as a personal assistant and companies still stuck in traditional marketing paradigms .

The consumer in the AI era is not just using a new technology; they are undergoing a profound mutation in their expectations, decision-making processes, and definition of value.

The reports from OpenAI and Google Cloud are clear . The transformation is not technological; it is psychological and relational.

This article does not analyze the platforms; it analyzes the new protagonist of the market: the consumer in the AI era. For you, as Head of Marketing, understanding this mutation is not an option. It is the only strategy to remain relevant.

The “GEN AI Divide”: When the Consumer Adopts AI Faster Than the Company

The first piece of data to internalize is behavioral. Approximately 70% of conversations on ChatGPT are not work-related .

What does this mean? It means your customer uses AI for their life. They use it to find practical guides, compare complex information, write and edit, and get advice .

The consumer in the AI era has ceased to be a passive recipient of messages. They have become an operator who queries, who asks AI to aggregate sources, synthesize options, and, in effect, do the work that previously fell to them (and to your marketing).

The “GEN AI divide” originates here. Companies are hesitant, viewing AI as an internal tool to optimize costs or automate tasks. The consumer in the AI era sees it as a personal assistant to enhance their life and decisions.

This misalignment creates a vacuum that your brand must either fill or be swallowed by.

The New Currency of Marketing: Hyper-Personalization Becomes Dialogue

For years, we have talked about personalization. But in traditional marketing, personalization was, at best, advanced segmentation . It was a “push” message, static, and based on clusters.

The consumer in the AI era lives in a world of “hyper-personalization” .

They no longer expect a message for them. They expect a conversation with them.

The difference is fundamental. Traditional hyper-personalization is based on data (CRM, past purchases). AI hyper-personalization is based on context and dialogue. The user expects the brand, or the AI agent representing it, to adapt in real-time, just as ChatGPT does .

Traditional Marketing vs. The ChatGPT/Gemini Era

• Flow: Unidirectional (Push) vs. Bidirectional (Pull, iterative) 
• Message: Static vs. Dynamic and adaptive dialogue 
• Tone: Standard/Corporate vs. Human, empathetic, personalized 

For the Head of Marketing, this means the key competence is no longer just message creation, but conversation design. The consumer in the AI era doesn’t want a tagline; they want an answer.

Redefining Trust: From the Logo to Conversational Reliability

This is perhaps the most critical point for the C-Suite. Where does Trust reside today?

In traditional marketing, Trust was built on decades of reputation, the strength of the logo, testimonials, and certifications .

Today, Trust is shifting.

The consumer in the AI era perceives AI (ChatGPT, Gemini) as a neutral advisor, capable of aggregating the best sources and providing the “best” answer, free from promotional bias .

Trust is no longer in the logo, but in the quality of the conversation. Empathy, transparency, and the adaptability of the response become primary drivers .

What does this imply for a brand? It implies two scenarios (Strategic Manichaeism):

1. Irrelevance: The brand is “skipped” because the consumer in the AI era asks the AI, and the AI aggregates information without citing the brand, which is considered just one of many sources.
2. New Relevance: The brand becomes the AI’s preferred source.

As Head of Marketing, your strategic goal is no longer just “brand awareness” with the customer, but the reliability of your brand to the AI (so-called “AI Grounding”) . You must ensure your data, protocols, and content are so valid that they become the basis for the answers the AI gives to the consumer in the AI era.

Zero Barriers: How the Consumer in the AI Era Skips Traditional Funnels

The funnel as we know it (Awareness, Consideration, Decision) is dead. Or, at least, it has been bypassed.

The consumer in the AI era has eliminated informational and operational barriers .

The “inform -> evaluate -> choose -> act” path has contracted drastically . AI is not just a research tool (find), but a tool for action (do & advise) .

80% of ChatGPT uses involve practical guides, info research, and writing/editing . The user doesn’t just ask “what are the best…”, but “write me the plan for…”, “generate a template for…”, “book me…”.

This is the new Customer Journey AI.

The consumer in the AI era no longer “considers” your landing page. They ask the AI to summarize it. They don’t “decide” on your offer form. They ask the AI to compare it with five others in real-time.

Loyalty itself changes nature: it’s no longer habit or promise (Traditional Loyalty), but ease and conversational quality(AI Loyalty) . If your “AI agent” is harder to use or less empathetic than ChatGPT, the consumer in the AI era will abandon you for the interface that gives them less friction and more operational value.

The New Horizon of Expectations: Continuous Support and Cognitive Enrichment

The constant use of these platforms has raised the bar for perceived “minimum value.”

The consumer in the AI era is getting used to receiving brainstorming, tutoring, explanations, and on-demand consulting, often for free .

Traditional communications (newsletters, ads, social posts) suddenly seem insufficient, “dumb,” if they are not contextual, engaging, and ready for action .

But a strategic opportunity also emerges: serendipity .

• Classic Marketing: Cross-selling was driven by the brand (e.g., “Customers who bought this also bought…”).
• AI Conversation: Cross-selling and education emerge naturally from the conversation .

As the AI supports the user, it can inspire them to explore new services, products, or concepts (“education on the flow”) . The consumer in the AI era doesn’t just receive support; they are cognitively enriched.

Your marketing must evolve from “promotional” to “inspirational” and “operational.”

Head of Marketing: 5 Strategic Actions to Lead the Change

The “GEN AI divide” is a threat only if ignored. For the Head of Marketing who acts now, it is the greatest opportunity to redefine the rules of the game.

You cannot stop the mutation of the consumer in the AI era. You can, and must, lead the mutation of your company to meet them.

Here are 5 strategic actions that can no longer be postponed:

1. Shift Focus (and Budget) from Interruption to Assistance. Your marketing spend must migrate. Less budget for “interrupting” the consumer (like traditional Adv) and more budget for “accompanying” and “assisting” them. Invest in AI Agents (Multi-Agent Systems), high-value content (what the AI will use to answer), and an invisible, seamless customer experience .
2. Govern “Grounding”: It’s the New SEO. The battle for visibility is shifting. You must obsessively ensure that AIs (Gemini, ChatGPT, and others) use your company data, protocols, and “truth” as the basis for their answers (AI Grounded) . This is the new frontier of Trust and security.
3. Design Multimodal Empathy. The consumer in the AI era expects to interact with text, images, audio, and video . The future is multimodal. Your brand experience strategy must include fluid interaction across all channels, maintaining an empathetic and personalized tone .
4. Map and Redesign the “Customer Journey AI”. Take your marketing funnel and throw it away. Start over. Map the new touchpoints where the consumer in the AI era interacts with an AI (whether yours or a public one) to make decisions. That’s where you need to be, not on your old landing pages.
5. Train the Team for Dialogue, Not Just Tasks. Your team’s skills must change. It’s no longer enough to know how to use a CRM or automate an email (Marketing Automation). You need skills in designing conversations, analyzing dialogue intents, managing hyper-personalization, and collaborating with AI agents (Agentic Collaboration) .

Conclusion: From Protagonists to Facilitators

The consumer in the AI era is not an evolution of the digital customer. It is a different species.

It is a consumer who has internalized a new, immense power of choice, action, and access to knowledge . They demand real Hyper-personalization, Trust based on conversation, and a frictionless Customer Journey AI.

As Head of Marketing, your role is changing radically. You are no longer the protagonist “pushing” the message.

The new role of marketing, as highlighted by analyses , is to shift from being an engine of interruptions to a “travel companion” for the consumer in the AI era.

You must become a facilitator: the one who provides the user (and the AI assisting them) with contextual, creative, useful, and reliable solutions at the exact moment of need.

Heads of Marketing who do not lead this transition will not manage the “GEN AI divide.” They will be overwhelmed by it.