Why AI content strategies need to focus on tasks not transactions | MarTech

"AI chat assistants are not being used the way many marketers expect. Instead of acting as shopping tools or search engines, they function primarily as support systems for cognitive tasks - writing, planning, analyzing and learning, according to a report by AI SEO agency Dejan. In 2026, optimizing for AI means understanding how users actually engage with assistants, not just assuming commercial behavior."

"Usage patterns: most chats are short and task-oriented Median chat length: 2 turns (a single question and answer) Median session length: 430 words Over 80% of chats are under 1,000 words Only 4.2% of sessions exceed 2,500 words, typically involving editing, summarization, tutoring, coding, or data analysis Mean session length: 732 words, skewed by long document submissions Assistant output volume: approximately 1.5 times that of user input"

"Petrovic analyzed 24,259 classified sessions across 42 intent categories. He found that 64.6% of sessions had no commercial intent. Users primarily engaged AI for tasks like: Brainstorming (7.7%) Planning (6.5%) Emotional support or conversation (6.2%) Analysis (5.7%) Learning (4.7%) Text transformation, including summaries and translations (4.6%) Content creation (3.9%) Even among the 35.4% of sessions showing commercial intent, the majority were early in the funnel: Awareness stage: 10% Consideration: 8.5% Discovery and decision support: 6.9% combined Transactionalsupport: 4.8% Post-purchase support: 5."

Data covers 3.9 million conversational turns, 613 million words, and 4.4 billion characters. Most chats are short and task-oriented: median chat length is two turns and median session length is 430 words. Over 80% of sessions are under 1,000 words, and only 4.2% exceed 2,500 words, which typically involve editing, summarization, tutoring, coding, or data analysis. Mean session length is 732 words, skewed by long document submissions. Assistants generate about 1.5 times the output of user input, with users contributing roughly 16–17% of session content. Commercial intent appears in 35.4% of sessions and is mostly early-funnel.

Read at MarTech