Mediaweek Newsmakers: Ryvalmedia on why AI could shut your brand out

Getting onto the shopping list has always been the job. Getting onto a chatbot’s shopping list adds another layer of complexity.

For Ryvalmedia’s Sam Cousins and Kenny Stewart, the rise of conversational AI poses a question brands can’t afford to leave with the tech department: what happens when a potential customer rules you out before they’ve visited your website, seen your product or walked into a shop?

Speaking on Mediaweek’s Newsmakers podcast, the pair explore how AI could change brand consideration, why content partnerships deserve another look, and what agencies risk losing when everyone reaches for the same tools.

Cousins, newly appointed National Head of Strategy and Product, reports to Stewart, Ryvalmedia’s National Managing Director. Stewart brings extensive senior holding company experience and has worked alongside RyanCap CEO Simon Ryan for many years.

Their discussion starts with a familiar purchase, now with an unfamiliar gatekeeper.

The shortlist before the shop

A customer asking an AI assistant for a recommendation might arrive at the beauty counter with their options already narrowed. For Cousins, that makes a brand’s visibility to large language models a commercial concern.

“Brand building is more important than ever, but if you are invisible to that LLM, you are not making that shortlist. You are not making the top three when I finally go into Mecca and choose my mascara.”

It’s another layer between building awareness and making a sale. A brand might be familiar to the shopper, but will it feature in the advice they receive?

Stewart says agencies are grappling with how to understand and influence that process.

“So it's like, what do they consider? All the stuff that we'd have been privy to and could influence, all of a sudden, what are they considering? Who to trust? What best suits them? Indeed, what should they avoid? We're kind of in a no-man's-land.”

An old idea gets another hearing

One possible response involves something publishers will be pleased to hear: content partnerships.

Cousins argues that brands should reconsider the value of both their own content and partnerships as they seek visibility in the material AI systems draw on.

“I think your owned content is more important than ever, because it's where you control the narrative, but I also think brands should be going back to good old-fashioned content partnerships.”

That raises an interesting brief. Content still needs to give people a reason to pay attention, while also helping machines understand what a brand offers and why it matters.

Stewart puts it plainly.

“So what we were feeling is that, clearly, brands need to connect with humans, as we always have, but they also need to speak fluent machine, basically, to address the rise of the algorithm, if you like.”

Faster is useful. Samey is a problem.

Then there’s what happens when AI moves from recommending products to making the ads for them.

Discussing an AI-generated telco advertisement, Cousins questions what the consumer actually gets out of the arrangement.

“So why should I care? I care even less now that I know that you're churning out AI ads as a consumer.”

For agencies, the concern is whether similar tools and optimisation methods begin sanding away the differences clients are paying them to create.

“So when I say try to protect from the grey, there's still got to be a level of creativity and distinctiveness, and that's really where we need to handhold our clients on that journey.”

Getting a machine to notice you is one challenge. Giving a person a reason to care remains another.

Listen to the full Newsmakers conversation with Sam Cousins and Kenny Stewart here for more on AI’s shortlist, the case for content partnerships and keeping brands out of the grey.