The Answer Economy

How AI Agents Will Decide Your Brand's Future

Pete Blackshaw

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781394432592
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781394432608
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Consumer Behaviour
• Index: Business

Master AI-powered marketing before your competitors make your brand invisible 

Consumers are asking ChatGPT, Gemini, and Amazon's Alexa for Shopping for brand recommendations and receiving single, decisive answers that bypass traditional marketing entirely. The Answer Economy: How AI Agents Will Decide Your Brand's Future offers business leaders the roadmap to ensure their brands are the ones AI recommends. Drawing from decades of experience helping Fortune 500 companies navigate digital disruption, author Pete Blackshaw reveals why brands unprepared for this seismic shift face existential risk. 

This practical guide introduces the LATCH framework (Listen, Answer, Tell the truth, Clarify, Host) and revolutionary concepts including the Answer Divide, Algorithmic Anchors, and Content Liquidity. Rather than focusing on using AI for marketing automation, the book addresses the more urgent reality that consumers have already adopted AI as their primary discovery tool. Readers learn to audit their brand's trust footprint across answer engines, identify vulnerabilities where outdated content creates risk, and create structured transparent content that earns algorithmic visibility through real-world case studies from challenger brands and Fortune 500 companies. 

Readers will also find: 

• Practical frameworks for becoming the brand AI recommends when consumers ask questions that matter most to your business 
• Step-by-step guidance on auditing your brand's algorithmic visibility and identifying content vulnerabilities before they become crises 
• Proven strategies for transforming FAQs, site search, and customer service into powerful algorithmic anchors that train AI about your brand 
• Real-world examples showing how brands win or lose in AI-powered discovery, from eCommerce successes to Fortune 500 transformations 
• Methods for building radical transparency and trust as your ultimate competitive advantage in the Answer Economy 

Essential reading for marketing professionals, business leaders, executives, and brand managers, The Answer Economy provides the strategic tools needed to thrive when the best answer – not the biggest advertising budget – wins. In this new landscape where trust becomes currency and AI algorithms act as gatekeepers, this book ensures your brand remains visible, relevant, and recommended. 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Praise for The Answer Economy
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• A Note on How This Book Was Made
• Introduction: The Bell Is Ringing Again
• 1 When Questions Become the Market for Your Product
• 2 The Six Drivers of Brand Credibility That Never Changed
• 3 Your New Customer Is an AI Agent
• 4 Platform Personalities: Why AI Answer Engines Evaluate Brands Differently
• 5 From Click‐Through to Ask‐Through: How Questions Replace Clicks as the New Demand Signal
• 6 The Three Metrics That Matter:Visibility, Vulnerability, and Readiness
• 7 The LATCH Framework: Five Behaviors That Build Trust at Scale
• 8 The Six As of Answer Readiness
• 9 Crisis and Governance in the Answer Economy
• 10 If I Were CEO: The 100‐Day Playbook
• 11 Lead Now. The Answer Economy Won't Wait!
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index
• End User License Agreement