At the “Getting Cited: How PR and Marketing Earn Visibility” session at HubSpot UNBOUND 2026 in Boston on September 16, an audience of 35 senior marketers was asked where they expect their customers to start looking for products two years from now. Only 11% picked Google search. A full 71% named AI assistants as the primary discovery channel by 2028. Results were released by ACCESS Newswire on September 18.
The sample is small, and worth reading carefully. Per ACCESS Newswire, 83% of respondents were brand-side marketers and 63% worked at companies of 51 to 1,000 employees, meaning the poll captures practitioners with real budget authority rather than agency observers or enterprise strategists insulated from the P&L. This is the tier that quietly reshapes category economics before the analyst decks catch up.
Their budgets confirm it. 80% said they’re increasing or starting a budget for AI search visibility next year, and 29% are pulling those dollars directly out of paid media. 43% reported organic traffic eased 10% to 25% this year; no respondent reported a larger decline. The erosion is real but not yet catastrophic, which is exactly the window in which reallocations get made without needing a crisis to justify them.
“That is 11%. That is how many marketers think Google search will still be the front door in two years. You can argue with the timeline, but you cannot argue with where these teams are putting next year’s budget. They have made the call already,” said Charlie Terenzio, SVP of Product at ACCESS Newswire.
The role composition tells its own story. 91% said their role changed in the past 12 months, two-thirds took on new AI responsibilities inside their existing remit, and 80% said AI dominated hallway conversation, with 49% of that talk focused on AI search and answer engine optimization and 31% on AI agents. Meanwhile 69% already check regularly whether AI answers cite their company (43% using dedicated tools, 46% manually), and 43% named proving return on investment as their top concern for the coming year.
Terenzio’s framing situates the citation question inside a familiar earned-media logic: “the way they always treated a front-page placement: something you earn, and something you can prove you earned.”
The mechanics of what gets cited are becoming legible. A Bluefish analysis of 23,592 brand and e-commerce URLs and 237,804 citation instances between September 1 and 7, 2026, reported by Agile Brand Guide on September 17, found that 59% of AI-cited product detail pages carry 100 or more reviews, 92% hold four stars or higher, and 65% display a review summary at the top. Citations were drawn across ChatGPT Web, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. A companion Bazaarvoice survey of more than 1,700 adults found 62% report higher trust in AI recommendations than six months earlier, and 57% call it very important to know an AI tool sourced its recommendation from real customer reviews and photos.
The poll instrument comprised single-select questions plus two open-response questions. Small sample, unambiguous signal.
Sources
- https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/computers-technology-and-internet/only-11-of-marketers-expect-google-search-to-be-their-customers-main-starting-point-in-two-years
- https://unbound.hubspot.com/
- https://martech.org/the-latest-ai-powered-martech-news-and-releases/
- https://agilebrandguide.com/yesterdays-martech-ai-cx-news-september-17-2026/
- https://agilebrandguide.com/yesterdays-martech-ai-cx-news-september-18-2026/