The monsters of digital marketing and the fear of AI
Forget trick-or-treating, ghosts, and decorated pumpkins! The anxiety of opening Analytics and finding your traffic has plummeted; the fear that your work as an SEO specialist, PPC, or copywriter will be devalued by automation; the very real fear that your brand will become invisible, swallowed up by AI responses.
These are the real “monsters” of our industry, unfortunately more real and worrying than those we are about to celebrate on Halloween, generating such widespread anxiety that almost nine out of ten businesses say they are concerned about organic visibility.
This is the data you need to start with, a powerful signal to understand where the market is shifting its value and which skills are becoming a priority. Because, remember: panic is a passive reaction, while strategy is informed action. Your task is therefore to transform fear from an operational block into a competitive advantage, understanding what the anxieties are and what concrete actions you can take right away.
The three monsters that scare digital marketing
The ghost, the zombie, and the mummy. No, these are not ideas for Halloween costumes, but three monsters that already haunt your daily work and your office.
The first, the Ghost, is the fear of invisibility. It is the terror experienced by those who, like you, live off organic traffic, run an e-commerce business, or work in publishing, and face Google, which, with AI Mode and AI Overview, increasingly stands between your brand and the user, threatening the findability (the ability to be found) that you have built up over years of work. You become a transparent ghost in your own SERP, forced to fight no longer for the top position, but to exist within the AI’s response.
The second is the Zombie, who walks the corridors of agencies and among the desks of PPC and SMM specialists: it is the fear of irrelevance, the fear of de-skilling that grips agencies and their specialists. Pushy automation (think Performance Max) and the overload of AI-generated content flatten strategic value, turning you into a “zombie” executor who clicks approve on a tool without applying a strategy anymore.
Finally, there is the Mummy: the fear of being “old,” outdated. It is the anxiety of inadequacy that paralyses managers and e-commerce managers who, feeling left behind, invest budgets in technologies they do not know how to control, ending up launching a ‘virtual sales assistant’ that frustrates customers and actively ‘burns’ conversions. With the added insult of appearing, in fact, like a relic from another era.
The battle for brand visibility and the “broken pact” with publishers
The trend of invisibility is reshaping budget priorities and strategies.
The anxiety of disappearing is so widespread that the study “AI Reshapes Search,” published a few days ago by Ann Smarty, interviewing a sample of over 300 businesses, found that 87.8% of professionals fear for their findability. Strategic analysis, however, is in the consequence, because today 75.5% consider brand visibility in AI responses more important than the click itself.
It is a reversal of the funnel: previously, the click led the user to discover the brand; now, the brand must already be recognized as authoritative by AI in order to be mentioned in the response and begin the journey. This also shifts the operational focus, because the goal is no longer to “drive traffic” but to “be the source” cited in the conversation the user has with the AI—which is why GEO and all the other acronyms are increasingly trending.
The publishing world has been experiencing this erosion for months: data from Digital Content Next (the association that brings together publishers such as the New York Times) on the US market confirms a decline of up to 25% in referral traffic on informational queries – the “heart” of their business. AI “solves” the question, the click is no longer needed, and the business model based on volumetric advertising collapses.
This is estimated by a survey by the Pew Research Center, which reports that 26% of users view an AI summary and end their browsing there, without delving deeper, without going further, without visiting sites or anything else.
Consider that even Salvatore Aranzulla, the “king” of informational content in Italy, has complained about the same problem, reporting an average 25% drop in traffic to his site caused by AI Overview, which, in his words, has “broken the implicit pact” between Google and publishers.
The devaluation of skill sets and AI that only creates noise
The fear of irrelevance is a more subtle anxiety that is not about replacement, but about de-skilling—zombiefication, to use a Halloween theme.
The “2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer” by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) has put a number on this fear: a 56% salary premium is awarded to those with advanced AI skills (such as strategic prompting or critical analysis of output). This creates a two-speed market, where the fear among agencies and PPC specialists is no longer “AI is stealing my job,” but “AI is turning my job into a commodity,” turning you from a strategist into a mere tool supervisor—a de-skilled zombie executor who passively waits for the product provided by a tool (such as PMax) and loses that “premium” value in the market.
For social media managers, this anxiety is compounded by AI overload. Last year, Sam Altman of OpenAI enthusiastically claimed that OpenAI’s systems alone generated 100 billion words per day (and today it’s certainly more), but as we know, “more content” often just means “more noise,” which reduces the quality of copywriting, reduces attention, and lowers the threshold of trust.
The IPIE (International Panel on the Information Environment), a consortium of global experts, notes that 66% of experts fear that AI is only amplifying misinformation. Your SMM job becomes exponentially more difficult: you have to stop producing and start fighting for trust in a feed where authentic and synthetic are indistinguishable.
The cost of inadequacy: AI that “burns” conversion
The last monster is the Mummy, the fear of inadequacy: it is the anxiety that paralyses managers and e-commerce managers, the fear of being “old,” outdated, of moving too slowly while the world races ahead.
An analysis by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has even given this fear a name – “GenAI Anxiety” – which concretely affects those who are responsible for ROI but operate without a consolidated playbook, paralyzed by the anxiety of accountability. According to their study, almost one in two leaders/managers (46%) who use AI intensively feel “precarious.”
The problem is that this paralysis is often justified and rational: a report by Salesforce on digital adoption reveals that 66% of IT professionals fear that their employees lack the skills to use AI successfully. Management is stuck because they know their team is not ready.
In the world of e-commerce, this management anxiety translates into a real cost: 41% of professionals fear that AI will provide “unresolved answers” and 16% fear “customer frustration,” according to a merciless study by the EComposer platform.
It is your real fear of investing thousands of euros in an “unprepared salesperson” who does not understand the nuances of the request and “burns” the sale, turning a technological investment into a loss of revenue and reputation.
Turn AI anxiety into a strategic advantage
Your market’s anxiety is your most powerful insight, the signal that tells you exactly what your customer doesn’t want (to be confused, to feel inadequate, to make mistakes) and what they really need (certainty, security, guidance).
Your task is to stop suffering from fear (Ghost, Zombie, Mummy) and start using it as a lever for conversion, updating your strategies for the AI era.
Move from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to resolving FOMU (Fear of Messing Up), the paralyzing fear of making the wrong choice. If marketing used to push scarcity (“limited offer!”), now, with AI noise reigning supreme, the options are endless and trust is scarce, your customer is terrified of making the wrong choice. Your strategy must therefore shift: stop selling features and start selling security. Your brand must become the “safe haven” that defuses performance anxiety.
This process is carried out in three stages: diagnosis (finding the FOMU), cure (resolving it with PAS), and guarantee (ensuring it with Brand Authority).
Intercepting FOMU on Google
Your customers’ deepest fears are already written, word for word, in the Google search bar. The user no longer searches for “running shoes”—that is an informed user, perhaps.
The anxious user, the one who is afraid of making a mistake and who is closer to conversion if reassured, searches for “how to choose running shoes for pronators without getting hurt” or “best mattress for back pain pros and cons.”
These queries are not asking for a product, they are asking for a solution to an anxiety (the fear of getting hurt, the fear of wasting money). Your editorial plan must stop targeting only dry keywords and start mapping these “emotional queries.” These are the strongest signals you have. This is where you need to use a tool like SEOZoom’s Question Explorer strategically: go beyond old search volumes and filter questions that start with “how to avoid…,” “why not…,” “risks of…,” “how not to make a mistake…”.
You are building a map of your target audience’s real pain based on data, which is not just useful for writing an extra article; it helps you understand what angle to give to all your content (from product sheets to emails) to respond not to a generic question, but to a specific and pressing anxiety.
The PAS framework for selling reassurance
Your map of anxious queries is applied in a technical tool that you need to respond: the PAS framework, Problem, Agitate, Solution.
Its psychological power comes from the fact that it never jumps to conclusions, but first validates the user’s fear (the Problem), making them feel understood. Only then does it touch on the raw nerve (the Agitate), i.e., the real and tangible cost of not acting, transforming that latent anxiety into a concrete urgency. At that point, your offer (the Solution) appears to be the only logical and safe resolution to that pain.
Let’s apply it to one of the fears we have mapped: the “Mummy,” the manager’s GenAI Anxiety. Your “Problem” is not “Buy my course,” but “Do you feel you lack the skills to lead your team through the AI transition?” The Agitate is not “Hurry up,” but “Every month of decision paralysis is a competitive advantage you give to your competitors.” The Solution becomes the natural consequence: “Our training program is designed to take your team from zero to full operational capacity…”. See how selling becomes consulting?
This approach, which is based on the fundamental psychological levers of copywriting, transforms your content from a product showcase to a tool for reassurance.
Brand authority as the only “safe haven”
You’re missing the last and most important piece: trust. The PAS framework is a powerful rhetorical structure, but in an era of generative AI, anyone can use it—your competitor can generate a PAS-driven page in thirty seconds, hitting the same pain points you’ve identified.
Amidst the noise, the user asks themselves the fundamental question: “Why should I trust this solution and not the ten other identical ones I just read about?” This is where brand authority ceases to be an abstract SEO metric and becomes your most powerful conversion asset.
In uncertainty, people don’t just look for the best answer, they look for the “safe haven.” They look for the name they recognize, the expert they have already read about, the brand that has demonstrated competence over time. Your brand is the reassurance. This brings us back to the theme of brand visibility in AI responses, even without clicks: in a world saturated with synthetic content, the only real guarantee that reassures an anxious user is not the promise, but the authority of the person making it.
From anxiety to strategy: answers to final questions
You have the map of fears and the three-step strategy (diagnosis, cure, guarantee) to turn uncertainty into an advantage. It’s normal to still have specific questions: it’s the last step before taking action. We’ve collected the most common questions that arise when translating AI anxiety analysis into everyday practice.
- Will AI replace digital marketing professionals?
No. But it will replace marketing professionals who refuse to use it. AI is not a “colleague” competing for your role; it is a tool that automates low-level execution (such as writing 10 meta descriptions or drafting a post). This shifts your value: from manual execution (which becomes a commodity) to strategy (the ability to make the right prompts, critically analyze output, curate the brand’s voice, and build authority). PwC data on the 56% salary premium for those with advanced AI skills confirms this: the market is no longer looking for “executors,” it is looking for “strategists” who know how to drive the machine.
- How are FOMO and FOMU (Fear of Messing Up) linked to the new fears of AI?
FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) was the dominant lever in a world of scarcity (limited-time offers, exclusive events). The AI era, with its endless production of content and options (“AI Overload”), has killed scarcity and made FOMO almost irrelevant. The dominant anxiety now is FOMU (Fear of Messing Up), the fear of making the wrong choice. With thousands of seemingly identical options and distrust of AI “noise,” users are paralyzed by the terror of choosing wrong, getting hurt, or wasting money. Your strategy must therefore stop selling “the opportunity not to be missed” (FOMO) and start selling “the safest choice” (solving FOMU).
- How can I use SEO data to discover my customers’ specific anxieties?
You need to stop doing keyword research for topics and start doing it for signs of anxiety. People write their fears on Google. Don’t just use SEOZoom’s Question Explorer to find generic questions (“how does X work”); use it to find FOMU. Filter for prefixes such as “how to avoid…”, “risks of…”, “how not to make a mistake…” or “best Y for…”. These queries are confessions. They tell you exactly what pain (fear of getting hurt, wasting time, looking stupid) you need to solve in your content to earn the trust and conversion of an anxious user.
- How do you use the PAS (Problem, Agitate, Solution) framework to respond to AI anxiety?
PAS is the perfect tool because it validates anxiety instead of ignoring it. Problem: Start by naming the specific fear. Not “Buy my tool,” but “Worried that automation will make your skills obsolete?” (responding to anxiety about irrelevance). Agitate: Amplify the cost of inaction. “Every month you limit yourself to ‘supervising’ tools, your strategic value decreases while that of those who learn to master them (56% more) increases.” Solution: Present your product/service as the only logical cure for that pain. “Our advanced course teaches you how to use AI for strategic analysis, transforming you from an executor to a strategist.” Sell a solution to anxiety, not a feature.
