Your buyers are asking AI. Is your brand in the answer?

Across two events this spring, we brought B2B marketing leaders together in Gothenburg and Stockholm to ask the questions the industry is tiptoeing around. What they told us — live, anonymously, in real time — is more urgent than most companies want to admit.

Across two events and nearly 80 senior B2B marketers, the signal is consistent: almost no one believes AI search will pass them by. The question isn't whether — it's how prepared they actually are.

73% of attendees said AI-driven search will affect their business "quite a lot" or "fundamentally" within 18 months.

Not observers. Decision-makers.

These weren't rooms of curious onlookers. Across both events, more than half the attendees held C-Suite, Founder, VP, or Director titles across sectors from automotive to financial services. When they report worry, it matters — these are the people who set strategy and control budgets.

"What's the first word that comes to mind when you hear 'future of search'?"

Open text. No options. No leading. Nearly 50 people answered across both events. One word dominated at a level that shut down the conversation before it started.

Three themes stand out across both events: "conversation," "agents," and "man and machine." These aren't just awareness of AI as a technology — they reveal a deeper understanding of what's actually at stake. These leaders aren't worried about how search works. They're worried about whether their brand survives the filter — and whether they can even hold a meaningful conversation in that new environment.

"AI" appeared in the majority of all responses across both events — unprompted, in an open-text field.

What this actually looks like in B2B

A procurement manager at a mid-sized manufacturer opens ChatGPT and types: "What are the best industrial automation suppliers in Sweden?" They don't go to Google. They don't scroll through ten blue links. They read the AI's answer — a synthesised shortlist of three or four vendors, drawn from whatever it has been trained on and can currently access.

If your brand isn't in that answer, you don't exist in that buyer's consideration set. No impression. No bounce. No 404. Just an invisible shortlist that closed without you. This is what the room meant by "brand being chosen or not." They understand the new game. The question is whether they're set up to play it.

Most people agree the shift is happening. Few are prepared for what it means.

The gap between conviction and action is the most important number in this dataset. Across two separate events, the same pattern appeared consistently: people strongly believe AI will reshape how visibility, discovery, and customer journeys work, yet far fewer have taken meaningful action to adapt. That disconnect between awareness and execution is where the biggest opportunity — and risk — currently exists for brands and organizations.

"They see the wave coming. They're just not sure they're surfboard-ready — and in AI search, that window closes fast."

Henrik Anderberg, EVP — GO MO Group

Leadership knows. Execution hasn't caught up.

When we ask about leadership awareness, 57% say yes — their team treats AI search as a business-critical issue. But when we ask about actual maturity, only 20% have made it a strategic priority. That inconsistency has a name — and it repeated itself across both events.

In B2B, this gap is uniquely dangerous. Sales cycles are long. Buyer journeys are long. That means the AI tools buyers are using today are forming impressions about your brand right now — impressions that will influence decisions 6, 12, or 18 months from now. Waiting for the gap to close on its own isn't a neutral choice. It's a compounding liability.

What worries B2B leaders most about AI changing search?

We asked attendees at both events to rank their biggest fears. The results expose a consistent anxiety — and one revealing shift between the two rooms.

The consistent finding: Higher content demands ranked last across both events. These rooms aren't worried about producing more — they're worried about being misrepresented. What's notable is the rise of "harder attribution and measurement" into the top three at our second event — a sign that as awareness of AI search grows, so does the commercial accountability question: how do you prove it's working?

What "losing narrative control" looks like in practice

A potential enterprise client asks ChatGPT: "What do people say about [your company]?" The AI synthesises reviews from G2, Reddit threads, and articles from two years ago — including one mildly critical case study that never reflected your current product. The buyer sees a lukewarm summary. They never contact you. You never know they existed.

This is invisible brand damage. It doesn't show up in your CRM. It doesn't trigger a lost-deal notification. It happens before the funnel begins — in the AI layer that now sits upstream of everything else.

The awareness is there. Action is the missing piece.

By the end of the event, the priorities were clear. What's most urgent — and how prepared do they actually feel?

Three things this data tells us clearly

The encouraging reality: the gap between awareness and action is still closeable — for now. The room voted overwhelmingly that AI-citable content and third-party credibility are the immediate priorities. Both are addressable with the right audit, the right content programme, and the right signals being built in the right places. This is exactly what GEO is designed for.

Find out where your brand stands right now in AI search.

We run GEO Readiness Audits that show you exactly how — and whether — AI tools surface your brand when buyers ask about your category. No assumptions. No guesswork. Just data, and a clear path to act on it.