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Invisible or Indispensable? How to Show Up in the GenAI Buyer Journey

Updated: Sep 25

Turn credibility into discoverability and win in the AI-first buying era.



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By John Rockhold, guest blogger

The Ways We Work

Volume 1, Number 7


What Does GenAI Trust to Generate Answers for B2B Buyers?


To answer this question, Spotlight, a global analyst relations consultancy, partnered with Profound, a platform that measures brand visibility across GenAI models. Together, they conducted new research analyzing how GenAI tools influence B2B vendor discovery and perception.


The study examined 25,000 buying prompts across major LLMs and captured the sources they cite, the vendors they mention, and the language they use.


I’m thrilled to share this recap with the Meerkat community as part of the "Ways We Work" thought leadership series.


The results were clear: vendors with consistent recognition across trusted sources --peer reviews, analyst research, open communities, and structured public content -- surface more reliably in AI-generated discovery moments.


This methodology gives us confidence. We are not speculating. We have reverse-engineered the reality of B2B buying in the GenAI era.


If GenAI Can’t Find You, Neither Can Your Buyers


This is the new truth. LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity are now the first step in the B2B buying journey.


  • 89% of B2B buyers have adopted generative AI and describe it as one of the top sources of self-guided information throughout their purchasing process (Forrester).

  • 20 million prompts per day in ChatGPT alone relate to B2B buying (Spotlight and Profound).


If you don’t show up accurately and credibly in these tools, your buyers will not find you -- or worse, they will discover incomplete or misleading information.


This is a colossal change. The buyer journey is no longer mediated first by your sales or marketing team. It is mediated by AI.


Orchestrating Influence for Visibility


Modern B2B discovery occurs before a buyer ever speaks with you.


That is why we are introducing Influence Orchestration (IO): the holistic, proactive practice of shaping your company’s presence across every channel that LLMs trust.


IO builds on the legacy of Analyst Relations, expanding it to new discovery surfaces, including peer reviews, community forums, open-source repositories, and AI-curated search. Done well, it creates a credibility flywheel: analysts endorse you, customers recommend you, and algorithms surface you. Each signal reinforces the others.


What GenAI Trusts (and Ignores)


Our research revealed the Trusted Source Stack:


  • Peer Review Platforms (G2, TrustRadius, PeerSpot, Gartner Peer Insights)

  • Analyst Research (when public and indexable)

  • Community Commentary (Reddit, Stack Overflow)

  • Open-Source Knowledge (Wikipedia)

  • Public Vendor Content (structured, validated, externally referenced)


Conversely, GenAI deprioritizes gated PDFs, paywalled research, overly branded blogs, or anything unstructured and hard to parse.


The mandate is simple: credibility must also be discoverable.


Practical Playbook for GTM Leaders


If LLMs are the new front door, you need a strategy to open it. Five steps to start:


  1. Treat GenAI like a channel. Monitor responses to prompts, benchmark your brand’s presence, and integrate findings into GTM planning.

  2. Make analyst research public. License and republish reports in AI-friendly formats.

  3. Prioritize peer reviews. Source them consistently and amplify them widely.

  4. Design content for prompts, not just SEO. Lists, comparisons, and third-party citations resonate.

  5. Align sales with the story AI already tells. Reps are now validators, not just educators.


Final Frame: Discoverable Credibility


The stakes could not be higher. Buyers form impressions and shortlists long before they contact vendors. Consider these stats from the 2024 B2B Buyer Experience Report (6sense):


  • 85% of buyers have largely established their purchase requirements before they contact sellers.

  • 84% of the time, especially in technology and software, the buyer contacts the winning vendor first.


Influence Orchestration gives GTM leaders a compass in this new landscape. By managing how your brand shows up in the ecosystems GenAI trusts, you can secure your place on those early shortlists and win the right to compete.


Disruption is here. The question is whether you will be invisible or indispensable.


An Invitation


👉 From John: Learn more about the Influence Orchestration concept and explore the full Spotlight–Profound research collaboration in the white paper: Influence Orchestration in the GenAI Era: What Every B2B Leader Needs to Know.


👉 From Mary: At Meerkat, we are committed to surfacing forward-looking perspectives through our Ways We Work series. Join our community to discover how professionals across various industries are adapting to the impact of AI on their work.


Follow our journey at trymeerkat.ai and connect with us on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date with the latest resources, insights, and updates.



 
 
 

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