5 Shifts in Online Behavior Marketers Should Know

Customers are visiting more places than ever to decide which brands to trust

Every year, the “Global Digital Report” gives marketers something rare: one snapshot of how the world uses the internet. This year’s edition, Digital 2027, comes from Meltwater and We Are Social. Out of the nearly 900 pages of data, three of its numbers will be quoted everywhere:

• 24 billion people now use generative AI tools, up 57.2 percent in a year.
• 5.81 billion social media user identities, equal to 69.9 percent of the world’s population.
• Since ChatGPT launched, there’s been a more than 10 percent drop in monthly traffic across the top 10,000 web domains.

The thread running through all three is simple: Your customers are visiting more places than ever to decide which brands to trust. The typical online adult now uses 5.8 channels to find new brands. This is a big opportunity for players that know where their people are looking and show up well there. 

Here is the five-move strategy I’d start with.

Begin by mapping where your customers look

Globally, search engines lead as a primary source for brand research (45.3 percent). Social networks follow (41.8 percent), then consumer reviews (35.3 percent), brand websites (32.9 percent) and AI (26 percent). No single channel reaches even half of people first, and the mix shifts with age. Social leads for 16- to 24-year-olds while search leads for those 65 and over. Start with your own evidence: customer surveys, “how did you hear about us” questions and social listening. Rank your customers’ top four research channels, then shift time and budget toward them.

Make social a place people can research you, not just see you

Among active users, 62.3 percent of Instagram’s and 59.3 percent of TikTok’s use those platforms to follow or research brands. Social media comments introduce 22.9 percent of internet users to new brands. So, treat social as part of the buying conversation. Publish what a buyer needs to make up their mind, from demos and comparisons to honest answers and real customer stories, on the platforms your customers favor. And reply to the comments, because for many people that is where they first meet you.

Shape the story AI tells about you

AI is already a primary research source for 26 percent of internet users, and 17 percent use it to discover new brands—so what it says about you matters. Our analysis of 7 million citations across eight generative AI platforms in August found that earned media and news accounted for 29.4 percent of brand mentions, social media 7.2 percent, reviews 1.3 percent and press releases 0.2 percent. The remaining 61.3 percent is a mix that includes brand websites and research databases. Results vary by model and category, but the message is clear: AI draws more on what others say about you than on what you say about yourself. So your reputation is something you can earn, one credible story at a time.

The good news is that you can act on that. Start to monitor and benchmark how the major LLMs describe your brand against your competitors, including mention frequency, sentiment and share of voice. Track the questions your buyers ask about your category, not just your brand name. Then you can analyze the top cited publications and journalists, which turns the question “what is AI saying about us?” into a clear list of outlets to earn coverage from, and a reason to put your PR efforts there first.

Tell one story, consistently, everywhere

Because AI answers draw on news, social, reviews and websites, any gap in your story is easy for people to notice. Agree on three core messages and the proof behind each, then hold your coverage, social, reviews and website up against them. Update your boilerplate, FAQs and product pages, give spokespeople the same talking points, and bring PR, social, content and web teams into one conversation.

Measure the whole picture, not just the website

With traffic to top web domains falling and time spent on the web down 11.2 percent over two years, visits to your own site now show only part of the picture. Pick three or four shared measures: share of voice, sentiment, AI visibility and website traffic, set a baseline now, review it quarterly and report it to leadership as one story. Measuring the full picture means connecting AI visibility with social listening and PR mentions, so that you can track and report on the impact of your work. 

Digital 2027 shows people spreading their attention across more places than ever. The brands that understand how people discover, discuss and decide, and act on such insights with confidence, are the ones they’ll find and trust.