While the imminent arrival of agentic AI into our daily lives will be accompanied by many useful applications, for advertisers and media planners, the old linear funnel on which they depended on might soon become a thing of the past, writes Colm Sherwin.
Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed rising chatter around OpenAI’s new agentic AI browser, Atlas. If the name OpenAI isn’t instantly familiar, it’s the company behind ChatGPT, and agentic AI browsers are widely expected to be the next major leap in how we access and navigate the internet. Core’s research on AI estimates that 25% of Irish people are using ChatGPT at least once a week, with 8% of all adults using it every day.
Until now, large language models like ChatGPT have mostly lived inside conventional web browsers or standalone apps. But the future is shifting toward agentic browsers such as Atlas or Perplexity’s Comet, platforms where the model doesn’t just answer your questions but takes actions on your behalf. This is where the real disruption begins.
For advertisers, this matters more than most realise. Because in this next phase of the web, the “audience” you’ll be trying to influence won’t necessarily be a human at all… but a robot acting on their behalf.
So, What Exactly Are Agentic AI Browsers?
Think of agentic AI browsers as next-generation web interfaces powered by models that don’t simply retrieve information, they reason, decide and act. Instead of typing a query and clicking through results, users’ hand over tasks: researching products, checking prices, comparing reviews, booking services, or interpreting complex information.
As these models scale and connect more deeply across the web, could agentic browsers become a dominant entry point for online activity? Will they reshape how information is accessed, how decisions are made, and ultimately how brands reach consumers? Search behaviour, discovery, and purchase pathways will all compress, making this one of the most transformative shifts on the horizon.
A Simple Example
Today, someone might search “best budget laptop under €500.”
Tomorrow, their agentic browser will understand the intent, assess multiple retailers, compare specs, check stock, weigh reviews and either recommend the option or begin the buying process.
In my own case, it could be something as everyday as spotting a traffic bottleneck and advising me to leave earlier to collect the kids from crèche. No search, no clicks, just intelligent action. Our Core Research study shows that traffic navigation is one of the areas where people in Ireland have the most confidence in AI empowered tools, with 34% of people aware AI is used in mapping tools and are comfortable with this fact.
Why This Matters for Advertisers
For advertisers and media planners, this isn’t just another platform update, it’s a structural shift. Exposure, consideration, and conversion will compress into a handful of interactions. Zero-click journeys will become commonplace. AI assistants will recommend, compare, and transact inside their own ecosystems, bypassing traditional ad placements altogether.
If the “browser” is now acting as a decision-making layer between brand and consumer, the old linear funnel – user sees ad → clicks → visits site → converts, becomes far less predictable.
What This Means in Practice can be divided into five specific areas. They are –
A shift from human-attention metrics to agent-interaction metrics: Brands will need to optimise for signals that AI agents understand, not just what catches a human’s eye.
Example: Instead of focusing only on standard digital creatives or video completion rates, marketers may need to ensure product pages clearly state features, benefits, pricing, delivery times and returns policies in formats an AI can parse and compare.
Optimise for the “agent experience” as much as the user experience: Structured data, clarity and machine-readable content become essential.
Example: With 43% of adults in Ireland believing AI will help them research places to travel, a hotel listing that uses clean schema markup, clear room descriptions and transparent pricing is more likely to be recommended by an agent than one relying on glossy imagery and vague copy.
Re-think media placement, targeting and funnel design: AI agents may compress the funnel dramatically.
Example: Instead of a consumer seeing five ads before clicking through to a brand’s site, their AI assistant might skip those steps entirely and recommend a single retailer with the best combination of price, stock and delivery, reducing the number of paid touchpoints needed.
Privacy, control and trust carry even more weight: If an AI agent is choosing on a user’s behalf, it will prioritise brands that appear trustworthy and transparent.
Example: A retailer with clear data practices and consistent customer reviews might rank higher with an agent than one with aggressive retargeting or unclear consent flows.
New types of “visibility” and “inventory” will emerge: Being surfaced inside AI recommendations could become the new premium placement.
Example: Instead of bidding for a top Google Search ad slot, the future “prime position” might be appearing as the first recommended product in an AI agent’s shortlist, a placement influenced by data quality, relevance, and trustworthiness as much as media spend.
Will This Really Impact the Irish Market?
In short: yes, but not overnight, and not evenly across every category. Early forecasts suggest that agentic AI browsers could reach meaningful scale within just a few years, with some analysts predicting mass-market penetration once they integrate natively into devices and operating systems.
For now, we’re only seeing the first wave of these platforms emerge. Atlas, for example, is still only available on macOS, while Comet is available only to a narrow set of markets. Google, meanwhile, has dramatically accelerated its AI ambitions, from AI Overviews to Gemini to the newly introduced AI Mode, but its long-term play in the agentic browser space remains unclear.
What is clear is the risk: with Google accounting for around 25% of Ireland’s total ad spend, any disruption to the traditional search model represents a major threat to their dominance. Given their scale and infrastructure, the assumption is that Google will launch its own fully agentic browser experience sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, most advertisers will continue adapting in more incremental ways: optimising content for LLMs with “GEO” (Generative Engine Optimisation) alongside SEO; leaning into AI tools within the major platforms to drive efficiencies; and experimenting with the growing suite of AI-powered creative solutions. These may feel like subtle shifts today, but they are laying the foundations for a much larger transformation.
Early adoption of Gen AI platforms by Irish users is growing at faster rate than early days of video streaming, smartphone usage and even social media platforms.
If agentic AI browsers deliver on even half the expectations being set, they could represent the biggest shake-up in advertising since the arrival of the smartphone.
Colm Sherwin is Chief Digital & Investment Officer with Core
