Customers are increasingly trusting digital interfaces, especially voice assistants, over brands themselves, according to our recent research. This new human-algorithm alliance has turned the business-to-consumer dynamic on its head, and is forcing brands to connect more intelligently and humanly with customers.

Consumers are often described as tech-savvy, always-connected, skeptical and demanding. With the rise of nonhuman intermediaries – recommendation engines, e-commerce sites, mobile apps, wearables, smart speakers and other AI-powered systems – consumer power has climbed to new heights. The machine-learning algorithms behind these systems are augmenting consumers with new levels of intelligence, serving up information, endorsements, guidance, suggestions and even autonomous purchase decisions: “Hey Alexa, buy some milk for me.”