Depending on where a brand lands in the index, D’Arcy said the first step is understanding how discovery is shifting. That means looking closely at the core questions consumers ask in each category and whether those questions are increasingly being answered by LLMs rather than search.
For brands sitting in higher-risk quadrants, strengthening customer relationships is one of the most direct ways to reduce exposure. Loyalty programs, in particular, can help move brands out of the danger zone. “Those are absolutely a strategy to move from that bottom left category to another,” D’Arcy said.
He also pointed to the importance of investing in owned experiences that keep customers coming back, such as apps that use first-party data to personalize interactions and make repeat engagement easier.
As discovery continues to fragment, D’Arcy added, brands will need to rethink how success is measured, shifting away from click-based metrics tied to search and toward direct engagement that supports longer-term relationships.
