Have you ever been binge-watching your favorite new show on Netflix while scrolling your phone through your friend's Instagram Story feed from their latest trip to Japan? I'm one of these people. And if you're honest, you probably are too — there's data to back it up: 83% of 18-34 year-olds and 85% of 35-54 year-olds regularly use a second device while watching TV.
And add in every app competing for that second screen, social media, gaming, news, streaming and now with AI chatbots.
So how have AI chatbots changed the way people search, consume, buy, and interact with the world around them? A lot.
According to the Pew Research Center, 49% of U.S. adults now use AI chatbots — and for a growing number of them, it's the very first stop when researching a purchase.
If you just read that and thought, "If I'm not showing up in ChatGPT or Claude, my business is dead in the water," slow down. It's not that simple.
People aren't linear in their digital behavior. We don't run our research and buying decisions through one single platform — we scatter across a dozen of them.
Think less funnel, more Jackson Pollock painting: a Google search here, a ChatGPT follow-up there, an Instagram testimonial, a Reddit thread — dozens of seemingly random touchpoints that only reveal a pattern once you step back and look at the whole canvas.
Is AI chatbot adoption growing fast? In some cases, yes. But not in all cases. In my own research and with my clients, adoption varies significantly by industry, age, and other demographic factors — some customer segments barely touch AI chatbots and still rely on Google Search as their primary research tool.
That's exactly why chasing whatever platform is the new shiny object and abandoning everything else is a mistake. We don't move from A to B. We move from A to B, to P, back to A, then to Z. The strategy has to start with your actual customer data — not with just solely focusing on chasing the latest "shiny object."
At Nobos Digital, innovation is one of our core values. We stay on top of how people are showing up across AI platforms. But the winning formula was never about channels or platforms — it's always been about personas: identifying, defining, understanding, and targeting your highest-value customer profiles first.
That's why every discovery call with a potential client comes with a free follow-up: a Customer Marketing Insights Report — a persona-by-platform breakdown of exactly where your ideal customers spend their time, from search engines to social platforms to the AI chatbots increasingly shaping how they research and buy.
But knowing where your customers are is only half the equation. Having the strategy, tactics, and resources to actually reach and acquire them is the other half — and that's what Nobos Digital specializes in: persona-based marketing that uses the right tools, messages, and channels to acquire only the customers who fit your highest-value personas.
Let's have a conversation about what's next for your growth.