"Context as a Service": from the product to the benefit, and from the benefit to the context

A recent conversation with a major retail player stayed with me. Their marketing team is now exploring the idea of "Context as a Service." The example? A user searching for "an outfit for a funeral." That detail almost never appears on a classic product page. For AI, though, it is a decisive criterion for shaping the answer, which forces the brand to adapt its product descriptions if it wants to show up in ChatGPT results.

What if context, so often pushed into the background, became the key to catching the attention of algorithms… and of people?

From classic personas to contextual personas

A persona is traditionally defined by static attributes: age, profession, interests, or buying behavior.

Useful as that data is, it struggles to reflect how complicated real decisions are. The same person can be a rushed executive in the morning, an attentive parent in the evening, or someone in mourning who wants discretion and respect. Context — that dynamic, situational layer — completes demographic criteria, and can even go beyond them. It turns an abstract target into a person in a specific situation, with precise needs, emotions, and immediate constraints.

Context: from "nice to have" to a strategic imperative

For years, SaaS companies have known that messages built around problems, or around the context of the search, convert better. Management software does not sell on its features. It sells on its ability to resolve a specific frustration.

With AI, that logic becomes systemic. What used to be a competitive advantage is now a condition of survival: for AI search engines, ignoring context is the same as being invisible. A brand that does not map the situations in which its products or services are used will be overtaken, every time, by the brands that do.

Retail has understood this. Context is no longer a detail. It is the foundation on which relevance is built. Other sectors need to follow — before AI does it for them.