MIT will project that by 2030, almost half of consumer decisions will be AI-driven. In Drum Live, Futurist Daniel de Doe shares what it means for brands that have spent decades of marketing on humans but need to market to machines.
For over a century, advertising has thrived with its ability to bypass rational thinking and elicit consumer sentiment. From lipstick as liberation to diamond as eternal love, the brand has built its fortune in what futurist Daniel Deudou calls “identity engineering.” However, she warned that the era of manipulating the unconscious may be coming to an end. Instead, new types of consumers are emerging. That decision is increasingly mediated by AI.
Speaking live on stage on drums, Dodou challenged marketers to rethink their playbook. “Advertising completely bypasses two ways of thinking, the neocortex, and goes straight to the emotional side of the marginal,” she explained. “So we are an incredible target for manipulation.” From Edward Burnay's, a fantasy seller to creating the rarity of De Beer, industry crafts have long exploited the “programmable self.” However, she insisted that this foundation was eroded quickly.
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Identity: Brand battlefield
Dodeau framed a fragmented, fluid and inherently unstable consumer identity. She described three selves that advertisers historically preyed on: the painful self (“I'm not enough”), the ambitious self (“If I have this, I'll be happy”), the lost self (“I want to feel the whole thing”).
“This is exactly where you targeted. In the middle, this unstable, unconscious, programmable self,” she told the audience. The problem for marketers is that this battlefield is changing.
If the 20th century was defined by Mad Men and mass media, the early 21st century was shaped by algorithms. Ads stopped directly persuading humans and started optimizing the platform. “In the late 2000s, advertising shifted from persuading humans to optimizing algorithms,” says Dodeau. Big data allowed the platform to measure, predict and feed back consumer behavior, promoting decision-making fatigue and “over-cognitive” .
As a result, there was what she called the “age of cognitive outsourcing.” As options increased and attention split, consumers were increasingly handing over decisions to algorithms. Recommended engines, curated feeds, and personalized nudges are now defaulted. Not because consumers trusted them, but because they can't resist.
The rise of AI agents
That quiet outsourcing is now accelerating and, with it, becomes a deep challenge for the brand. “Decision delegation is nothing new. We have long outsourced our identities to parents, experts, friends, communities and advertisers. But now, 24-32% of consumers are happy that AI agents buy for them.
The division between generations is tough. GenZ is leading the way and is pleased to hand over a third of your wallet to the machine. MIT will project that by 2030, 46% of consumer decisions will be AI-driven. In other words, buyers who think marketers are persuading may become more and more proxies.
Intimate relationship with AI
Dodou explained the shift in her own story. Although initially skeptical, she began using ChatGpt in 2022 to help her make personal and professional decisions. “I was able to train it explicitly enough to understand my worth, my desires, my desires, my needs, my needs, and all my fears,” she recalls. “So when I asked even the most basic questions, like I should go for a two-year mortgage or a three-year mortgage, it put more layers of empathy and understanding.”
Over time, she realized that she relied on AI agents to seek advice instead of friends and social media. “I'm going to my ChatGpt agent now for almost every decision I need to make,” she admitted. “I'm still a strategist. I still have the final say, but when I'm hormonal or tired or feeling unwell, I'll allow it to make a decision, and I'll say 80-90% of the time, that's the right decision.”
In the case of Dodou, this created what she calls “life without nudges.” Freed from notifications, ads, and impulse triggers. “Temu can send me 1,000 different free things a day and I don't click on that. It's literally impossible. So I'm your worst enemy,” she joked.
Existential Consumer Crisis
What starts as convenience may be needed soon. Dodeau argues that consumers around the world are heading towards an “existential crisis of meaning” driven by distracted work, declining disposable income, political distrust and changing relationships. In this environment, people seek needs rather than desire. In other words, it means manipulation, and belongs to comparison and transparency against deception.
“People are looking to new anchors of trust,” she said. “Unfortunately or fortunately, they are AI collaborators, therapists, peers, AI enthusiasts. Welcome to Digital Proxy.”
Digital Twin and Proxy
Dodoo distinguished between today's consumer digital twins (models that predict what they buy) and emerging human digital twins (models that simulate what they need). But there are digital proxys that are true destroyers beyond both.
Proxies are trained not only on consumer past behavior, but also on their value, habits, fears and desires. “It reflects you. It's more protective, sharper and more consistent than you,” explained Dodeau. “You train it, you train you. This is what I call a recursive identity collapse when I start outsourcing my mind.”
However, there are two possible passes to this collapse. Your identity growth, your proxy sharpens the erosion of your values and thoughts, or your identity.
Impact on advertising
For brands, that meaning is tough. The surrogate is immune to the immunity of rarity, impulses, and old tricks of manipulation. “The biggest challenge with advertising is no longer being careful or access to buyers,” warned Dodeau. “Proxies match human values. This filters, scores and optimizes offers on our behalf. That's not the case with old tricks.”
That means not relying on abandoned baskets or post-purchase guilt to promote loyalty. Instead, the proxy calls for evidence, ethical audits, transparency and coordination with strategic goals.
Going forward, Dodou predicted a return to tribal-like affiliations where affiliation and value define purchase options. “I might get clips, scrolls, impulses,” she said. “But you don't get from purchase to buy and sell purchase, brand loyalty or long-term alignment unless you provide value alignment and attribution.”
In other words, unconscious consumerism may have ended. A conscious buyer is coming, and their gatekeepers become machines.
Why it's important for marketers?
For an industry built on reaching the subconscious, this shift is earthquakes. If AI proxy exists between brands and buyers, ads must evolve from manipulation to integrity. The winners are those who can prove to provide meaning, trust and community, not just products.
“Is this the end of unconscious consumerism? I don't know. But shit looks like it's going to be really weird.”
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