The news: B2B buyers are leaning on AI tools for vendor selection, raising the stakes for surfacing in AI results.

• 80% of global B2B buyers in the tech industry use genAI as much as traditional search when researching vendors, per Responsive’s Inside the Buyer’s Mind report.
• 40% of all buyers use genAI and traditional search options equally.
• 22% use genAI more than traditional search when researching vendors.

Why it matters: Market research and discovery is the most time-consuming aspect of vendor selection for three-quarters of buyers, making AI-driven efficiencies a key strategy.

• Nearly half (47%) of B2B buyers use AI for market research and discovery, and 38% use it for vetting and shortlisting vendors.
• This stands in stark contrast to the 18% of general B2B marketers who are using AI to research vendor websites, per Anteriad.

If vendors aren’t surfacing in genAI answers, they risk disappearing entirely from buyers’ research process.