Consumers are increasingly discovering and ruling out brands inside AI conversations, often before they ever visit a company’s website, according to a new study from research-led communications agency We Are Talker. The study, conducted by Talker Research among 2,000 U.S. adults who had used AI for a personal purpose in the previous three months, found that 70% had discovered a brand, product or service for the first time through AI. Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 64%, had gone on to buy or use something from a brand AI first introduced to them.
At the same time, 68% said information from AI had caused them to rule out a brand or product they were considering. We Are Talker describes this phenomenon as The Invisible Shortlist: the brands AI adds to, or removes from, a shopper’s consideration while a purchase decision is still open. The findings suggest that AI is not just helping people find information but is starting to influence which brands get considered, rejected and ultimately chosen.
“The shortlist is increasingly being shaped before a consumer ever reaches a brand’s website,” said Tim Haslam, CEO of We Are Talker. “AI isn’t just helping people find information. It is starting to influence which brands get considered, which get rejected and ultimately which get chosen. That creates a different challenge for brands. It is no longer enough simply to be visible. Brands need credible, attributable evidence that helps AI understand why they deserve to be considered and recommended.”
The research forms part of We Are Talker’s work around AI-era brand authority and its Talker Pulse™ program, which examines how major AI platforms answer commercial questions, which sources they rely on and whether brands appear in recommendations. The agency’s approach combines original research, primary-source publishing and earned media with monitoring of how AI systems interpret and cite that evidence. The full study is available at https://wearetalker.com/the-invisible-shortlist-ai-brand-discovery-study-2026/, with a citation record at https://talkerresearch.com/the-invisible-shortlist/ and methodology details at https://talkerresearch.com/methodology/.
The Invisible Shortlist study also found that 73% of respondents open to using AI in purchase decisions considered AI recommendations influential, compared with 81% for search results and 79% for customer reviews. While AI recommendations trail search and reviews in perceived influence, the study indicates that brands increasingly need to understand not just how they rank in search, but how they are represented inside AI-generated answers and recommendations.
“The brands that build authority early in the customer journey can win customers they may never previously have reached. The ones that do not may never even know they were excluded from the decision,” Haslam added. The findings imply that as AI becomes a more common shopping assistant, brands that fail to establish credible, attributable evidence may find themselves silently excluded from consideration, with little awareness that they were ever in the running.
We Are Talker, which helps brands build authority through original research, earned media and AI visibility strategy, commissioned the online survey between September 21 and 30, 2026. Results are self-reported.
