The Consumer Journey is Changing. Gen Z is Living It.

If you've ever watched a Gen Z-er scroll on their phone, you've probably noticed how quickly we move. We jump from TikTok to Instagram, answer a text, send a DM to a friend, and go right back to scrolling, all in a matter of minutes.

That same instinct to move between platforms also shapes how we interact with brands.

We might discover a product on social media, ask AI to help us compare our options, search TikTok to see what other people are saying, come across an ad a few days later, and send it to a friend before making a purchase decision. Or we might hit those exact same touchpoints in a completely different order.

As both a Gen Z consumer and marketer, I experience these behaviors firsthand while also thinking about what they mean for the brands trying to reach us.

While these behaviors aren't exclusive to Gen Z, many of them were taking shape just as we were becoming consumers ourselves. Moving between social media, search, creator content, and other sources of influence wasn't necessarily a change we had to adapt to. In many ways, it was our starting point.

That's what makes Gen Z a useful lens for understanding what a more fluid consumer journey looks like in practice. The marketing funnel may still have the same stages, but the path between them has become far less predictable.

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Discovery has more starting points than ever.

For a long time, marketers could make some reasonable assumptions about where a consumer might begin looking for a product. Today, there are far more places to start.

AI is the latest addition. Consumers can ask a chatbot a question, explore options, compare products, or figure out where to begin without having to sort through pages of search results.

For Gen Z, AI fits naturally into a journey that's already shaped by new platforms and behaviors. It can turn a broad question into a useful starting point in seconds, making discovery and comparison that much faster. And if there's one thing our generation appreciates, it's anything that saves us a little time and effort.

That creates a new challenge for marketers. Consumers may discover a brand through sources they wouldn't have thought to search before. Simply showing up on the latest platform isn't enough. Brands need to understand what questions consumers are asking, what information helps them narrow their options, and how easily they can find those answers across different discovery points.

Consumers can now learn about a brand, compare it with competitors, and form opinions without ever visiting its website or interacting with its content. That means marketers need to think beyond the channels they control and consider how their products are being represented in the places consumers turn to for information.

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Technology helps us search. People help us decide.

We have more technology than ever to help us figure out what to buy. But as those tools make it easier to find and compare our options, many of us still want to know one thing:

What do actual people think?

That's one reason social platforms have become such an important part of product research for Gen Z. Search for a product on TikTok and you'll find reviews, tutorials, comparisons, unboxings, and videos of people actually using it. Even the comments can become part of the research process.

We don't necessarily want to see only the polished product photo or hear what a brand says about itself. We want to know what something looks like in real life, whether it's worth the price, and what someone who has actually used it has to say.

Creators can take that trust even further. Following a creator over time builds familiarity, which can make their recommendations especially influential when we're considering what to try or buy.

We can turn to AI to help narrow our options, then turn to people to help us feel confident about them. As AI makes information easier to access, trusted human voices may become even more valuable in helping us decide what to believe and ultimately buy.

For brands, that makes social and creator content more than a way to spread the word. These channels are increasingly part of the research and consideration process, as consumers look to other people's opinions just as much as a brand's own messaging. That's why creators deserve a more intentional place in the marketing mix, not just for reaching new audiences, but for building the trust and confidence that can influence a purchase decision.

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More touchpoints mean more competition for attention.

The consumer journey isn't just happening across more places. Brands are also competing for our attention at every one of them.

Gen Z gets a lot of credit (and blame) for the rise of short-form content. But the takeaway for advertisers shouldn't simply be to make every ad shorter. The bigger shift is how quickly we've become used to deciding what deserves our attention.

On TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and other feeds, we're constantly making that choice. In a matter of seconds, we decide whether to keep watching, scroll past, click through, or move on to something else. Advertising has to earn attention in the same environment as everything else on our screens.

And when consumers are already moving quickly between touchpoints, brands can't assume they'll stick around long enough to figure out why a message is relevant.

That doesn't mean a 30-second ad can't work or that long-form branded content is dead. It means the value of the message needs to come through quickly, while the creative gives us a reason to stay for the rest.

That's an important distinction for advertisers. Capturing attention isn't enough; what matters is what a brand does with it. Strong creative should make those few seconds of attention count by communicating something meaningful about the brand or product, building curiosity, or giving someone a reason to take the next step.

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Culture can start the journey, not just influence it.

We often think about advertising as a way to reach consumers who are already somewhere in the funnel. But great creative can do something else entirely: give someone a reason to enter it.

An ad can introduce us to something we weren't searching for, make a brand suddenly feel relevant, or spark an interest that wasn't there before. And when creative connects with culture in the right way, that interest can extend beyond the ad itself. It becomes something people want to talk about, share, reference, or revisit.

That's especially powerful when brands are showing up in the same feeds as creators, celebrities, entertainment, memes, music, and everything else competing for our attention. To resonate in that environment, brands don't always need to be louder. Sometimes they need to have something worth saying.

This can mean telling a relatable story, bringing in perspectives and voices we don't always hear, making us laugh, or creating something that actually makes us feel something. And while trends can help brands join the conversation, they aren't the only way to connect with Gen Z. Original storytelling can be just as powerful when it feels thoughtful, relatable, and genuine.

The opportunity for marketers is to understand what audiences genuinely care about, where the brand has a natural place in those conversations, and how creative can turn that relevance into curiosity.

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What Gen Z can tell us about the journey ahead

For Gen Z, a fast-moving consumer journey has always felt pretty normal. We're used to moving between platforms, adapting to new tools, and finding different ways to discover and make decisions.

That doesn't mean every consumer will behave like Gen Z, or that we know exactly where the journey is heading. But our behaviors offer one view into what happens when consumers become comfortable discovering, validating, and making decisions across an expanding mix of influences.

We can ask AI where to start, turn to people we trust for validation, decide in seconds what deserves our attention, or discover something we never knew we wanted because the right piece of creative found us first. As new tools and behaviors emerge, that mix will keep changing.

That's the bigger opportunity for marketers. The goal isn't to predict the exact path a consumer will take or chase every new platform that enters it. It's to understand what consumers need at different moments and make sure the brand is useful, relevant, and worth paying attention to when those moments happen. It’s also where the next generation of marketers can bring a valuable perspective, having experienced many of these shifts firsthand.

The traditional marketing funnel can still help us understand the stages of a decision, but the path between them belongs to the consumer.

Brands don't need to predict every turn. They need to be worth choosing wherever the journey leads.