AI Marketing Research Index
Copper Sun maintains this index of primary literature on AI marketing, marketing effectiveness, buyer psychology, and generative engine optimization. Every entry is a peer-reviewed paper, published conference proceeding, credentialed industry report from an independent non-vendor organization, or verifiable benchmark — no vendor white papers. Capsules are written from Copper Sun's applied perspective: what each source means for teams using AI to produce on-brand content that works, and where Copper Sun's platform draws on that research.
13 topics · 53 entries · last verified July 2026
About this index
Inclusion bar: a source must be a primary document — peer-reviewed paper, published conference proceeding, credentialed industry report from an independent non-vendor organization, or verifiable benchmark — with a URL that resolves and an applied implication for AI marketing teams. Excluded: vendor white papers, tool-vendor benchmarks, and paywalled papers without accessible preprints or landing pages. Copper Sun has no financial relationship with any listed source or researcher. Sources are fetch-verified; URL liveness and claim accuracy are reviewed at each maintenance cycle.
Research topics
AI Citation & Generative Engine Optimization
What does the research say about why AI search engines cite some content and ignore other content?
Context, Retrieval & What AI Actually Uses
What does the research say about how AI models use context in their inputs — and what makes context effective?
Instruction Following & Brand Rules in LLMs
What does the research say about how AI models follow structured rules — and what makes some instructions more reliable than others?
AI Hallucination & Brand Factual Accuracy
What does the research say about why AI systems fabricate facts — and what actually prevents it?
Evaluating AI Content Quality
What does the research say about how to reliably evaluate the quality of AI-generated content?
Marketing Effectiveness & Long-Term Brand Building
What does the research say about what actually drives long-term marketing effectiveness?
Attention, Emotion & the Buying Brain
What does neuroscience research reveal about how buyers actually process brand signals and make purchase decisions?
AI-Generated Content and Consumer Trust
What does the research say about how consumers perceive, trust, and are influenced by AI-generated content?
Brand Growth, Mental Availability & Distinctiveness
What does the research say about how brands actually grow, and what does that mean for content produced at volume?
B2B Buying Behavior & the Buying Center
What does the research say about who actually makes a B2B purchase decision, and what does that mean for content?
Word of Mouth & Social Transmission
What does the research say about why some content gets shared and talked about while most does not?
Pricing Psychology & Reference Effects
What does the research say about how buyers actually judge whether a price is reasonable?
Creative Effectiveness & Why Intuition Fails
What does the research say about which creative work actually sells, and can experts tell in advance?