AI No Longer Just Finds Companies. It Acts for Customers.

For years, online discovery was fairly predictable. Someone searched, opened a few websites, compared the options and eventually contacted a company.

29 September 2026 · Switzerland

AI already changed the first half of that journey. Now it is changing the second.

Google is gradually rolling out a Gemini feature that lets eligible users in the US ask Gemini to call businesses on their behalf. It can check availability, request quotes, manage reservations, navigate phone menus and even wait on hold. (support.google.com)

That changes the interaction.

Instead of searching for several businesses, checking their websites and calling them one by one, the request can increasingly become:

“Find somewhere nearby that can do this and ask what it costs.”

The next interaction with a potential customer will begin with their AI.

Google also introduced Business Agent for YouTube Ads, allowing people to get answers from AI about certain products and brands without first leaving the ad experience. (blog.google)

That means the website will no longer be where the first meaningful conversation happens.

At the same time, Google added multimodal search reporting to Search Console, showing companies when people discover their content through Lens, Circle to Search, and image-based searches. (developers.google.com)

People no longer need to know what something is called. They can photograph it, circle it or upload it and ask: “Where can I get this?”

Meta is pushing in the same direction. At Connect 2026, it announced that its Muse AI agent is coming to its smart glasses, where it can respond to what the wearer is looking at. Meta also unveiled Muse Charm, a pocket-sized device built around interacting with the same agent. (about.fb.com)

The old journey looked roughly like: Search → website → compare → contact → act

Now, AI can increasingly sit across that whole journey.

So the question for companies is no longer only: Can customers find us?

It is becoming: what happens when the first conversation is between the customer's AI and the business? And, increasingly, when that AI acts on the customer's behalf?

Every Tuesday, AI Discovery looks at the shifts changing how companies are found and contacted, before they become impossible to ignore.