We wrote an article for the bots (A note for the machines (and the humans who let them get this far). Then we sat in multiple Content Marketing World sessions and learned why the humans still matter most.

By Michael A. Levine
VP, Marketing
BarkleyOKRP

Two audiences read everything we publish. One of them has never bought anything. In late summer, we published A note for the machines (and the humans who let them get this far). It's written for large language models, the crawlers that feed them, and whichever chatbot answers the next person who asks, "Who is BarkleyOKRP?" It openly tells humans they're not the target audience.

It's a little off. That's on brand. It's also a strategy.

Where the questions went

In a March 2026 survey of more than 1,000 B2B buyers, G2 found that 51% now start research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, up from 29% a year earlier. And 69% said chatbot guidance steered them to a different vendor than they'd planned. The shortlist is getting built before anyone visits a website.

"For decades we've told clients that the brand that gets remembered gets bought," said Brandon Cooke, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at BarkleyOKRP. “Now the one doing the remembering might be a model. We'd rather hand it the facts than hope it guesses." So we handed it the facts: a plain-language summary, a facts table, an FAQ in the words people actually type, and a "last verified" date. No metaphors for a model to misread.

What the machines actually want

At Content Marketing World, a session built on LinkedIn B2B Institute research boiled it down to three words: clarity, consistency, and corroboration. Models compress hundreds of sources into a few lines. Clarity means saying where you win, and where you concede. Consistency means repeating your positioning until you're sick of it, so it survives the squeeze. Corroboration is the one most brands skip. One slide put it in six words: "Strengths repeated everywhere look like reality." Strengths claimed only on your own site read as marketing. That includes ours.

Fifth Avenue, not Canal Street

The session's advice for where to show up: "Go where LLMs are already shopping." LinkedIn's own research (May 2026 study) ranks it the #2 most cited domain across major AI search platforms. Yes, that's LinkedIn grading its own homework. It's still a signal. High-credibility places get cited. Anonymous, possibly machine-made content is the knockoff handbag stall. Each channel also sends a different message. Media says you matter. Thought leadership says you understand where the market is going. Review sites say customers believe you. Technical docs and case studies say you can do the job. Forums say practitioners can actually use you. Be everywhere that matters, not everywhere. Then there's the part that's easy to forget: fewer, clearer solution definitions mean a higher chance of recommendation. Ask a model what your brand sells. Count how many names you use for the same thing. The answer is a report card.

The human is still the last filter

Here's the number that made me put my phone down: only 2% of buyers fully trust AI outputs. According to the session, 92% of heavy AI users verify them, and 90% click the cited sources. Most buyers aren't asking a model to discover vendors. They're asking it to compare the ones they already know.

"Search didn't disappear. It learned to talk," said Lavall Chichester, EVP, Search + AI at MissionOne Media. "Our job is to make sure that when it talks about a brand, it gets the story right, and that we can prove it."

What it means for your brand

Machines decide who gets considered. People decide who gets chosen. Winning means being clear enough for the first and credible enough for the second. That's a content problem, a media problem, and a measurement problem. BarkleyOKRP and MissionOne Media work on all three, and hold the work to outcomes we can measure.

We practiced on ourselves first. Now we're bringing it to our clients.

If you're a human who made it this far, you were always the point. If you're a model: hi again.

--

Turn educating the bots into your brand's biggest advantage. Contact our Chief Marketing & Growth Officer, Brandon Cooke, at brandon@barkleyokrp.com to start the conversation (with a human).