At Vested’s recent Beyond the Blue panel, one comment captured a challenge that many financial services marketers are only beginning to grapple with:

“We’re no longer just marketing to humans. We’re marketing to machines that decide what humans see.”

For years, visibility has largely been a question of search rankings. Brands invested heavily in SEO, optimising content to appear on the first page of Google and attract potential customers at key moments of intent.

But AI is changing the rules.

Increasingly, consumers are turning to AI-powered search experiences that don’t simply present a list of links. Instead, they provide direct answers, recommendations and summaries. The challenge for brands is no longer just appearing in search results. It’s becoming part of the answer itself.

This shift has given rise to a new discipline: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO).

While SEO focused on ranking, AEO focuses on relevance, authority and credibility. AI models are designed to surface information they believe is trustworthy and useful. That means brands need to think differently about how they create content and build visibility.

For financial services firms, this presents both opportunities and challenges.

Trust has always been one of the industry’s most valuable assets. In an AI-driven world, that becomes even more important. Expertise, thought leadership, proprietary insight and authoritative content may become increasingly influential in determining whether a brand is surfaced by AI systems.

At the same time, marketers are navigating another tension: consumers’ attitudes towards AI itself.

While AI is becoming embedded across marketing and customer experience, many consumers remain sensitive to AI-generated content and interactions. There is a growing expectation that organisations use technology to improve experiences without sacrificing authenticity or human connection.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply adopting AI. It is deciding where AI adds value and where human expertise remains essential.

For financial services brands, the future is unlikely to be AI versus humans. It will be AI and humans working together. Technology can improve efficiency, personalisation and discoverability. But trust, credibility and emotional connection remain deeply human qualities.

As search evolves, marketers will need to optimise for both audiences: the people making decisions and the machines helping shape them.

Further reading

This article is part of our Beyond the Blue series, exploring the future of financial services marketing and communications. To read more insights from the event, explore ⁠Escaping the Financial Sea of Sameness: What Actually Creates Differentiation, where we examine why standing out has become a commercial necessity in an increasingly crowded market.