Marketing plans built to avoid blame keep challengers invisible, a contributor argues
Marketing plans that copy the category leader keep challengers invisible, argues an opinion column published in Entrepreneur. The contributor cites a Pew Research Center study of nearly sixty-nine thousand searches. It found that when an AI summary sits above Google results, users click a traditional link in only eight percent of visits, compared with fifteen percent when no summary appears.
The safe plan is often chosen to protect whoever approves it, not to win the market. Following the industry norm shields the person signing off, because nobody gets questioned for doing what everyone else did. The company pays for that protection. It spends real budget to stay a follower, while AI answers quietly redirect the traffic that familiar metrics still count as healthy.
Source: Entrepreneur · October 31, 2026