Soochow Securities released a research report stating that AI marketing replaces experience-driven approaches with data intelligence, achieving precise targeting and significant efficiency gains. The domestic AI marketing application market is projected to reach 97.6 billion yuan by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.5%. As an emerging trend, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) targets the dividend from AI search traffic distribution, with its market size potentially reaching 24 billion yuan by 2030, representing a CAGR of 53%. The main viewpoints of Soochow Securities are as follows:

AI marketing utilizes artificial intelligence as a vehicle to achieve a comprehensive digital and intelligent reconstruction of the entire marketing chain. The essence of AI marketing is the use of AI methods to upgrade marketing logic from "experience-driven" to "data intelligence-driven." Centered on data and intelligence, and leveraging technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, and generative AI, AI marketing accurately captures user needs and responds in real-time. This breaks the limitations of traditional marketing, characterized by "large-scale coverage and extensive operation," enabling precise marketing delivery and enhancing efficiency across the entire chain. It facilitates not just personalized "one thousand customers, one thousand faces" marketing, but even multi-dimensional, multi-journey marketing adapting to "one thousand scenarios for one customer." Across different marketing stages—from strategic planning, to execution and conversion, to growth optimization—AI marketing primarily encompasses four core functions: data insight, content generation, process execution, and interactive assistance.

The commercialization of AI marketing is accelerating, with the potential to reach a market size valued in the hundreds of billions. Firstly, for service providers integrating functions like data insight, process execution, and interactive assistance, Software as a Service (SaaS) stands as one of the most common and mature delivery models for commercializing AI marketing agents. Leading marketing SaaS providers, both domestic and international, such as Salesforce, Tencent Qidian, and Maifuse, have successfully integrated AI Agent technology, achieving positive results in commercial monetization. Secondly, referencing Frost & Sullivan projections, the domestic AI marketing application market is entering a phase of rapid growth, with the medium to long-term potential to reach a scale valued in the hundreds of billions. The revenue scale of China's AI application market for marketing and sales decisions was 20.6 billion yuan in 2024. Driven by corporate digital transformation needs, massive data growth, and technological advancement, the market size is expected to reach 97.6 billion yuan by 2029, corresponding to a five-year CAGR of 36.5%. Thirdly, the landscape of domestic enterprise-level AI Agent service providers has formed a three-tier competitive structure: dominated by major internet companies, deepened by vertical specialists, and challenged by innovative startups. Second and third-tier vendors are seeking breakthroughs within their existing ecosystems through platform capabilities or differentiated technologies like long-text generation, code generation, and voice interaction.

A new frontier in AI marketing, GEO applications are beginning to emerge. With the shift in traffic entry points, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) aims to significantly enhance traffic acquisition efficiency by optimizing the visibility and credibility of content within AI generative engines. Compared to traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO), GEO's essence remains the optimization of traffic distribution efficiency. However, the focus shifts from being efficiently recommended by traditional search platforms (catering to traffic ranking, keyword matching, etc.) to being recommended by AI search platforms (based on user semantic recognition and precise matching with more credible brands), effectively shortening the consumer shopping journey (query — recommendation — purchase). Unlike the straightforward matching of SEO, GEO is more suitable for high-ticket, high-information-density purchase decision scenarios, thereby helping users complete purchase conversions by integrating multi-dimensional information references. Currently, leading brand marketing service providers, such as Profound and Weimob Xingqi, are helping brands establish quantifiable competitive advantages within the new AI traffic ecosystem by deeply integrating technical capabilities with industry expertise. According to estimates from the Miaozhen Marketing Science Academy, the domestic GEO marketing service market size is projected to be 2.9 billion yuan in 2025, reaching 24 billion yuan by 2030, with a CAGR of 53%. The GEO market competition landscape features "technology-driven leaders, deep cultivation in vertical scenarios, and an ecosystem-friendly coexistence." Service providers across different tiers are securing their positions through differentiated advantages, with e-commerce operators also actively strengthening GEO adaptation services based on their existing marketing businesses.

Empowered by AI, listed marketing service companies are riding the wave of growth. Fujian Lichuan Development Co., Ltd. plans to launch its strategic AI product, the "Maidian AI Agent Matrix," in 2026, leveraging its long-term marketing expertise in graphic/video content generation, precise ad placement, and user behavior data analysis. One Net One Creation is transitioning from an "omnichannel e-commerce service operator" to an AI e-commerce service model characterized by "experts + AI SaaS tools," collaborating with Alibaba Cloud to develop an AI Agent intelligent management system and deeply participating in Alibaba platform marketing campaigns. Aoki Technology is driven by a dual engine of proprietary brand incubation and AI-enhanced Trading Partner (TP) services, creating a synergistic closed loop. It has independently developed and launched the AI Shopping Assistant "Aoki Woodpecker" and the "Qingling AI Middle Platform." Maifuse, as a leading domestic "AI + SaaS" intelligent marketing cloud platform, has launched the Marketingforce platform and AI Agentforce middle platform. Building on its accumulated underlying AI technology, it possesses SaaS platform advantages in terms of product breadth and integrated capabilities.

Risks include intensifying industry competition, macroeconomic demand falling short of expectations, and technological development progressing slower than anticipated.