Chelsea Clarke’s article was previously featured in the Summer 2026 issue of Strategy Magazine.

Remember when every digital journey began with Google? Lately, consumers don’t. Depending on the question, they might head to TikTok for recommendations, Reddit for unfiltered opinions, YouTube for tutorials or ChatGPT for oddly specific (though somewhat dubious) answers. Discovery is splintering across platforms, forcing marketers to rethink a playbook built around search engines for more than two decades.

But according to Praxis CEO Matt Juniper, marketers may be diagnosing the shift incorrectly. “The real shift isn’t specifically about search at all – it’s about credibility,” he says.

Image courtesy of Daria Nepriakhina/Unsplash

Consumers aren’t just looking for information anymore; they’re looking for validation from sources they trust. That’s changing what visibility actually means. Instead of asking how to rank higher, marketers may need to ask who’s talking about their brand, where those conversations are happening and whether those voices are trusted by audiences they’re trying to reach.

In that environment, discoverability is becoming less of a technical challenge and more of a reputational one.

“Discovery now lives in an ecosystem of creators, communities and experts that you don’t control, and AI is ingesting their content to inform on brands,” Juniper says. “Think of social content not just as social content, but as search inventory. The only way to show up well is to both engage these stakeholders and be genuinely worth talking about.”

That doesn’t mean brands need to be everywhere. In fact, Juniper argues the opposite. Rather than chasing every platform, marketers should focus on earning credibility with the audiences and voices that matter most.

Praxis research found that seven in 10 Canadians lose trust in brands that jump on trends that don’t fit their purpose. The smarter move, Juniper says, is to identify the creators, experts and communities shaping conversations in your category and invest in relationships with them.

As discovery becomes increasingly decentralized, visibility may have less to do with what brands say about themselves and more with what others are saying on their behalf.

“Ultimately, you can’t optimize your way into credibility,” Juniper says. “You have to earn it.”