The A.I wave is redefining the entire retail, media, and advertising industry, and in Vietnam, this trend is happening strongly.

When A.I assistants can make purchasing decisions, it creates a new set of rules for the advertising industry.

A notable insight is that consumers are increasingly using artificial intelligence tools to get product advice before making a purchase, including platforms like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini. About 50% of customers have used A.I in some form, with around 60% relying on these tools for product guidance.

Resetting the Rules of the Game

The A.I wave is redefining the entire retail, media, and advertising industry, and in Vietnam, this trend is happening strongly. The concept of “AI First and AI All” has been emphasized, viewing A.I as the primary foundation for all activities, applying A.I to management where “digital robots” not only collect data but also analyze, suggest, and support decision-making.

When consumers input queries to A.I chatbots instead of traditional search tools, advertisers will have to find ways to ensure their brands are recommended by tools like ChatGPT or Gemini. A.I can already analyze customer moods to select ads with emotional resonance, thereby increasing natural interaction rates. Hyper-personalized A.I helps brands provide increasingly accurate and flexible customer experiences, significantly boosting consumer satisfaction and encouraging repeated interactions with the brand.

Instead of placing ads on the margins of websites, A.I directly integrates commercial suggestions into its answers. When a user asks for a solution to a problem, A.I can provide an objective analysis, then subtly insert the name of a sponsored brand as an “optimal” choice. When A.I begins performing tasks on behalf of humans, such as booking flights, shopping, or scheduling meetings, it holds the key to consumer behavior. In this model, A.I is not just a consultant but becomes a sales representative for the highest bidders. This is the agentic advertising model.

When A.I becomes the default interface for search, it has full control over product visibility. Being “named” by A.I in a response becomes a new form of SEO, with much stricter barriers to entry than optimizing keywords on traditional search engines.

Taking Over Shopping Decisions

A recently revealed A.I-integrated shopping tool allows users to instruct it to send notifications when the price of a product drops to a certain level. Such tools may soon be “empowered” to make shopping decisions on behalf of humans.

These models show that A.I has penetrated deeply into advertising, and A.I assistants are gradually becoming salespeople. From OpenAI, Google, Microsoft to Amazon, most major players are joining this game. This is not just a change in display interface, but a core shift in the digital business model: from the “attention economy” to the “intent economy.”

The fact is that the four largest ad sellers—Google, Meta, ByteDance, and Amazon—account for more than 50% of the global market, compared to just over one-third in 2019. Moreover, 8 out of the 10 largest ad sellers are also technology companies, and A.I seems to be strengthening their power to dominate user purchasing decisions.

For OpenAI, which is expected to spend $25 billion in cash this year, advertising is a necessary way to monetize hundreds of millions of free users. Despite the same revenue goal, OpenAI and Google show different approaches in deciding the right to “close the deal.” About 98.5% of ads in Google’s A.I mode appear in response to the first query, similar to how traditional search engines work.

ChatGPT seems more “patient.” Less than half of ads appear in the first response, and nearly one-third appear after the 10th interaction, much like a real salesperson waiting for the customer’s intent to become clear before making an offer. OpenAI focuses more on brand-building advertising to polish its image.

Nevertheless, these A.I models still face major challenges regarding brand safety and effectiveness measurement. When chatbots write ad content themselves, companies remain wary of a “silicon salesperson” that could create

OpenAI

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research organization founded in December 2015 with the mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. Initially established as a non-profit, it later transitioned to a capped-profit model in 2019 to attract more funding for its ambitious projects. The company gained global recognition for developing advanced AI models like GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) series and DALL-E, significantly influencing the field of AI and natural language processing.

Google

Google is a multinational technology company founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University. Originally a research project to organize the world’s information, it quickly grew into the world’s dominant search engine and a major player in online advertising, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Its name, derived from the mathematical term “googol,” reflects the company’s mission to index the vast amount of information available on the internet.

Microsoft

Microsoft is a global technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It revolutionized personal computing with its Windows operating system and Office software suite, becoming one of the world’s most valuable companies. Today, its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, serves as a hub for innovation in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and software development.

Amazon

The Amazon is a vast and diverse region primarily defined by the Amazon Rainforest, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, and the Amazon River, the second-longest river on Earth. Its history spans millennia of Indigenous habitation, followed by European exploration beginning in the 16th century, and later periods of rubber extraction and deforestation. Today, it is a critical ecological and cultural site, vital for global climate regulation and home to countless species and Indigenous communities.

Meta

Meta is a region in southern Albania known for its rich cultural heritage and historical significance, particularly during the Ottoman period. The area features ancient ruins and traditional architecture that reflect its role as a crossroads of civilizations. Today, it is recognized for its natural beauty and archaeological sites, attracting visitors interested in history and culture.

ByteDance

ByteDance is a Chinese internet technology company founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, best known for creating the content platforms Toutiao and TikTok (Douyin in China). It rapidly grew into a global tech giant by pioneering AI-driven content recommendation algorithms, becoming one of the world’s most valuable startups. Despite facing regulatory challenges and geopolitical tensions, particularly over TikTok’s operations in the United States, ByteDance remains a dominant force in social media and digital entertainment.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI language model developed by OpenAI, first launched in November 2022. It is based on the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture and trained on vast amounts of text data to generate human-like responses. Since its release, it has become widely used for tasks such as answering questions, writing, and conversation, sparking significant discussion about AI’s capabilities and ethical implications.

Gemini

The term “Gemini” most commonly refers to the third astrological sign in the zodiac, represented by the Twins, Castor and Pollux of Greek mythology. In modern culture, it is also famously known as the name of NASA’s Project Gemini, a crucial space program in the 1960s that tested key technologies for the Apollo moon missions. Additionally, “Gemini” can denote the Gemini Observatory, a pair of powerful telescopes located in Hawaii and Chile that have been advancing astronomical research since the early 2000s.