Whether you’re client-side or agency-side, you’re likely exploring various AI tools to boost efficiency, productivity, and save time. Are you splitting your searches between Google and AI chatbot tools like ChatGPT, Deepseek, or Perplexity? Probably – and the tool you choose likely depends on the task at hand.
But have you thought about how your brand shows up in those AI-powered searches?
If your buyers are using AI to research, what’s your strategy for being found?
Buying habits are changing
You already know the B2B buyer journey is evolving rapidly. In EMEA especially, buyers are completing extensive research before your sales team even knows they exist. According to 6sense’s 2024 Buyer Experience Report, around 76% have already chosen their preferred vendor before engaging with sales.
When conducting online searches, our search baits have evolved, diversified – buyers aren’t just relying on Google anymore. They’re turning to a wider variety of information sources – podcasts, YouTube channels, LinkedIn videos, industry conferences, and niche publications. And now, increasingly, to AI chatbots.
And if your brand isn’t visible in these influential channels, you’re unlikely to make it onto buyer shortlists.
Enter the dark funnel: the critical research and shortlisting that happens behind the scenes before the buying committee even speaks to your sales team. This is where buying decisions are quietly made, brand preferences solidify, and where Large Language Models (LLMs) – the foundation of AI chatbots – are becoming increasingly influential.
Visibility beyond Google
Google’s market share is slowly declining as conversational AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity offer quicker, more in-depth answers. Currently, AI chatbots account for just 1% of overall internet searches – but ignore that 1% at your peril. It won’t stay small for long.
One factor to watch is the rise of new search functionality within AI chatbots. There’s an emerging divide between the types of prompts that surface web links and those that reference text from indexed content. Understanding how and when chatbots attribute sources (or not) will be increasingly important for marketers.
If your content isn’t indexed – or isn’t credible enough to be referenced – you won’t make it into the answer.
Given the speed at which AI is evolving, betting against rapid growth in chatbot-led search would be risky. While staying visible in traditional search still takes time and budget, the real shift now is in diversifying your presence. Visibility is no longer just about Google rankings – it’s about being included in the conversation.
And here’s the kicker: you can’t simply buy your way into AI-generated search results like you can with PPC.
Getting your brand into ChatGPT
ChatGPT, like other chatbots, learns from trusted, credible, and regularly updated online content – articles, blogs, reports, and industry publications. To make sure your brand shows up in its responses, you need to consistently place it within authoritative content, alongside the right industry terms, topics, and signals.
In some ways, we’re going back to the “good old days” of digital visibility; when simply being near the right topics was enough to be noticed. But this time, the stakes are higher.
You don’t just need traditional SEO tactics like backlinks or technical optimisation. Getting into LLM results is about being present in the right conversations – the ones shaping opinion and buying intent before a search is even typed.
PR is your ticket into AI
Targeted PR – thought leadership articles, guest blogs, industry reports, podcasts, and videos – plays a major role in embedding your brand in the places LLMs learn from. Every ChatGPT update (typically every few months) indexes new content, gradually shaping the responses it gives to millions of users.
There’s a common misconception that LLMs are trained on “the entire internet.” Not true. Most are trained on a relatively narrow set of high-authority sources, often scraped from datasets like Common Crawl. That means domains like The Guardian, Wikipedia, and the New York Times are disproportionately represented.
Your SEO strategy won’t help if you’re not visible to the datasets training these models.
So, if you want your brand to appear in AI-generated answers, you need to show up where the models are paying attention – high-authority, topic-relevant websites in your sector.
It’s not instant, but it is powerful. Proactively positioning your brand in valuable content ensures you’re front-of-mind and front-of-answer in AI-driven searches.
And this isn’t just future-proofing. It’s results-focused, right now.
Bring your marketing and PR closer
Some marketers might read this and wince. The idea of PR and marketing sharing budget or blending tactics still raises eyebrows in some organisations. But in reality, these functions are just two halves of the same coin.
When PR and marketing are aligned, your brand becomes both visible and credible in the moments that matter – well before sales gets a foot in the door.
At onebite, we’re PR specialists.
We’re also marketing experts.
That might sound contradictory to some, but it’s genuinely true. That’s why we know how to build visibility that works – strategically and commercially.
Ready to become AI-visible?
If your buyers are asking ChatGPT for advice, you should be part of the answer. Let’s chat about how to make that happen – before your competitors do.
Annabel Lander, Senior Account Manager
Annabel Lander is a Senior Account Manager at onebite, and specialises in evolving the relationship between PR and marketing. This blended approach helps to create higher value, harder-working content that’s more aligned with brand values and messaging and ensures a consistent brand voice.
Annabel also enjoys the creative side of the agency and believes that B2B marketing doesn’t need to be bland, there is bounds of space for stand-out creativity and innovation.
