Amy Webb opened OMR 2025 with a straight message: most brands are preparing for the wrong future. The founder of the Future Today laid out a structural shift already underway. In her view, the next big disruption won’t be about content, platforms, or even creators. It will be about agents—and how they transact with each other.
Here’s what she said, and what it means.
1. From B2C to A2C
Forget B2B or D2C. Webb argued that we’re heading into a world of AI-to-consumer (A2C) interactions, where digital agents will research, select, and even purchase products on our behalf.
“We could be looking at, in the next 24 months, AI-to-consumer. The AI does the design, connects with a manufacturer, and ships exactly what the consumer wants”.
This changes everything—from brand loyalty to marketing funnels. “The AI model… it is the brand,” she said.
2. The little black dress scenario
To illustrate the point, Webb asked the audience to imagine a consumer choosing between a well-known mid-range designer dress—or a perfectly personalised, AI-generated one.
“What if the consumer has a choice between a mid-range designer dress or a one-of-a-kind perfect dress made by a designer AI? Who’s going to win out?”
Scarcity, she argued, is no longer exclusive to luxury brands. AI will bring personalised exclusivity to the masses—at scale.
3. Your brand needs to speak to machines
Webb warned that AI systems like ChatGPT and Gemini are already generating shopping recommendations. But brands don’t know how they’re showing up—or if they are at all.
“Products appear in places like ChatGPT and Gemini for reasons we don’t understand… It’s a black box”.
To adapt, she suggested brands must become machine-readable: with identifiers, parameters, and credentialing built to be understood by agents.
“Research and build agent-friendly brand identities… This might involve digital identifiers, credentialing, or defining parameters”.
4. It’s time to prototype with agents
Rather than waiting for this future to arrive, Webb argued that brands need to begin experimenting now—by testing marketing strategies between agents, not just for human audiences.
“Develop, test, observe how different agent-to-agent marketing approaches perform… This is a weird new area of learning that is going to surprise you”.
She also urged companies to identify “proto-influencer agents” and begin piloting agent communication strategies.
So what?
Webb is outlining a new infrastructure—where AI agents act as decision-makers, creators, and intermediaries. Brands that continue building for humans, without considering how they appear to machines, risk becoming invisible. For any brand thinking long-term, the next R&D budget needs to include machines as stakeholders. Agent-to-agent marketing isn’t science fiction. It’s the new distribution.