I recently had dinner with my great and GSI Co-Founder friend Jeremy Sanchez, and our conversation turned to where AI is taking marketing and search. Jeremy was telling me where he thought it was going and used the term “invocation,” and it struck me immediately as the right word for the even larger AI shift that’s underway.
He gave me a simple but powerful example:
“Find me Tesla Y inventory within 100 miles of me.”
That isn’t a search query. It’s not about browsing lists of dealerships. It’s a call to action. The system isn’t surfacing ten blue links — it’s invoking inventory databases, mapping functions, and availability filters, then presenting the best options for you to review.
That word — invocation — became the centerpiece of our conversation.
We’ve Been Here Before
Talking with Jeremy brought back memories of our team’s earlier experiments, which were inching toward invocation, even if we didn’t have a name for it yet.
Back in the “old days,” we built what we called Ad Apps — small, campaign-specific micro-applications that pulled in live data. We created them for site owners to add to their websites, allowing them to gain links to our clients’ websites. We talked about a few of these that would be exponentially easier to develop today. Some of the early invocation-like integrations:
- Weather + ZIP code triggers: If you live in a ZIP code where the temperature exceeds 60°F, you’ll receive an email reminding you to schedule a furnace tune-up. When spring temps hit 45°F, pet owners were nudged to order flea and tick medication.
- Financial alerts: If the stock market dipped or headlines about inflation emerged, an automated alert encouraged you to call your advisor about portfolio protection.
- Dynamic catalog and art feeds: One catalog company, known for its cover art, built a widget that rotated artwork in real time. An art retailer went further, letting site owners embed feeds of different artists’ work based on what they wanted to showcase.
Looking back, these were proto-invocations. They stitched data together, triggered actions, and called content into play in context. The limits weren’t conceptual — they were technical: compute power, brittle integrations, and bandwidth.
Today, with headless platforms, APIs, and AI orchestration, those constraints are gone. What felt like hacks or experiments then now look like early blueprints for the next wave.
What Invocation Really Means
In technical terms, to invoke is to “call upon something to act.”
Jeremy explained that, in an AI-driven marketing context, invocation occurs when a system or user directly calls your brand, content, or capability into play — not just surfacing it, but actively placing it in a decision path.
The critical distinction: invocation doesn’t mean blind automation or handing over full control (although many use examples of automated shops and buying futures). Most users don’t yet trust AI to transact independently. What invocation does is prepare, assemble, and stage actions — so the human can review and decide.
- A travel assistant not just surfacing Delta, but assembling three flight options with pros and cons, ready for you to choose.
- A Shopify agent not just shows sneakers, but places a shortlist in your cart with sizes, reviews, and comparison data for you to review.
- A B2B buyer prompt not only links to your whitepaper but also runs your ROI calculator in the background, presenting results you can validate before committing.
This is the shift: from discoverability (can I find you?) to callability (can I use you right now, in context?) — with the human still in control.
Why Invocation Will Redefine the Landscape
What makes invocation so disruptive is that it changes the center of gravity for digital strategy. For 20 years, the competition was about being visible: rank higher, show up more often, earn more impressions. Generative engines already pulled us into the Share of Model era, where eligibility and authority determine if your brand is part of an AI answer.
But invocation raises the stakes again. It’s no longer enough to be seen or even cited. You need to be usable in the moment of need.
That shift forces tough questions:
- Is your content structured so it can be invoked, not just read?
- Do your systems expose callable endpoints, or are they locked behind forms and interfaces?
- Can your data integrate across contexts — so an AI assistant can stage options, compare choices, and tee up actions without you losing control of the experience?
The Trust Factor
Invocation also reshapes how trust is built. In traditional search, the click implied consent: the user chose to visit your site. In invocation, the system brings you into the flow before the user makes a decision. That means trust is conferred by design:
- Are you transparent in how your data is used?
- Are you consistent in the answers and actions you provide?
- Do you give users control to review, validate, and decide before committing?
Without those signals, invocation becomes a liability, not an advantage.
Why Most Companies Aren’t Ready
The truth is, most companies are still architected for the discoverability era. Their content is flat. Their data is siloed. Their measurement frameworks still rely on page views, sessions, and funnels. They don’t have an invocation layer — the APIs, agents, and structured datasets that make their brand callable.
This is why invocation is a leapfrog moment. Just as China skipped landlines and went straight to mobile, companies that skip incremental “GEO adaptation” and build directly for invocation will move faster than incumbents trying to retrofit.
And make no mistake — invocation isn’t just a slogan. It requires rethinking how data is structured, how content is atomized, how systems connect, and how trust is signaled. I often delve into the details of the mechanics — from product feeds and attribute frameworks to API readiness and agent orchestration. In Part 2 of this series, we’ll dive into those dimensions in detail, showing why invocation can’t happen without a solid data foundation and what companies must do to get there.
Closing Thought
Invocation reframes the big question. It’s no longer: Will you be found?
It’s: Will you be called?
And even more urgently: Will you be ready when you are?
In Part 2, I’ll unpack the practical side of this leap — the content, data, and cultural shifts companies must make to move from visibility to callability.
