Mastering AI Visibility: Five things we learned

The conversation around AI and B2B marketing has shifted. B2B buyers are increasingly forming opinions about brands before they ever visit a website, based entirely on what AI systems surface in response to their queries. For marketers, that shift creates a new kind of risk: not being misrepresented, but simply not appearing at all.

That context shaped the second running of our ‘Mastering AI Visibility’ event, held at LinkedIn’s Experience Centre in Central London. The event brought together senior B2B marketers and communications leaders for a practical session on generative engine optimisation (GEO); what it is, why it matters and what to actually do about it.

The seminar brought together a sharp line-up to explore what brands should be doing to increase their AI footprint. Ros Rowlatt (Digital Media Director) and Jo Wilmot (PR Director) from The Think Tank were joined by Robin Smith and Tabitha Pattison from Censuswide to share research, frameworks and practical thinking. Fredrik Boreström, Director of International Agency Development, EMEA & LATAM at LinkedIn, also took to the stage to share some exciting B2B marketing ideas.

Here’s a wrap-up of what we learned:

1. Not showing up in AI search results damages brand credibility

According to Censuswide research, 51% of consumers form a negative opinion of a brand that doesn’t appear in AI search results. That happens before a buyer has visited your website, read a case study or spoken to your sales team. 

The implication is significant. Absence from AI results isn’t a gap in your traffic data, it’s a credibility deficit that forms in the mind of a potential buyer before they’ve engaged with you at all. 

The brands that show up are winning credibility at the earliest stage of the buying process. Those that don’t are losing it just as early.

2. GEO requires marketing, PR and insight teams to work from the same strategy

AI systems don’t draw from your marketing content alone. They synthesise your entire digital footprint, including press coverage, trade body mentions, review platforms, social media and employee-generated content. 

That means marketing, PR and insight teams working from separate strategies will produce a fragmented signal, and a fragmented signal is a weak one. The mindset shift required here is as significant as the practical one. The starting point is a cross-functional audit of how your brand currently appears across AI platforms, and who owns what.

3. How to write content that AI systems will understand and cite

AI systems reward content that is structured, specific and credible. That means explicit entity referencing, journalistic writing backed by real data, FAQ sections that answer questions directly, and clear summaries at the top of pages.

Most brand content isn’t written this way. It tends toward the vague, the aspirational and the self-referential. Closing that gap doesn’t require a full content overhaul, but it does require a deliberate shift in how briefs are written and how content is reviewed before it goes live.

4. Why B2B brands are reaching the wrong people

Fredrik Boreström from LinkedIn introduced the concept of Buyability, a strategic model developed with Bain & Company that reframes how B2B marketers should think about reach.

The research findings that underpin the model suggest brands are more than 20 times more likely to be bought when everyone in the buyer group knows them on day one. When looking at real world examples; in brand deals that completed successfully, 81% of the buyer group knew the brand from the outset. In brand deals where only the team that first recommended the brand had any awareness of it, that figure dropped to just 4%.

The difference isn’t product quality or price. It’s whether Legal, Finance and Procurement, all of whom hold real influence over the final decision, had ever come across the brand before the process began.

The GEO implication is direct: if your content only reaches one function, your brand’s digital signal is just as narrow. AI systems synthesise your entire footprint, and a footprint built around a single audience produces a thin, fragmented signal. In other words, broadening reach across the full buyer group is a credibility strategy as much as it is a media strategy.

5. Why B2B marketers should stop selling capability

One of the most counterintuitive findings from Fredrik’s session challenged a core assumption of B2B marketing. When buyers are choosing from a shortlist, the top emotional driver isn’t confidence in the product, but confidence that they could defend the decision if it went wrong. That factor came out top in LinkedIn and Bain’s research, cited by 34% of buyers. Only two of the top five drivers related to product capability at all.

The dominant concern, in other words, is reputational self-protection. Remember – nobody ever got fired for buying an IBM. Buyers aren’t asking “will this work?” so much as “will I be safe if it doesn’t?”

That has a direct bearing on how brands should think about their content and their AI visibility. Content that builds peer validation, demonstrates relational fit and signals that others like you have made this decision successfully is the content that drives Buyability. It is also, as Fredrik’s framework shows, the content that AI systems are most likely to surface: credible, human, use-case specific and validated by networks.

How to improve your brand’s AI visibility

The overall takeaway from the ‘Mastering AI Visibility’ seminar was just how much AI search is reshaping how B2B buyers are discovering and evaluating brands. But as also covered, there’s a lot of things businesses can do to adapt.

From conducting a GEO audit to writing content that gets cited, the channels that drive AI visibility, including digital, PR and content, all work together. Each one contributes to the credible, consistent signal environment that AI systems reward.

Not sure where to begin? Our GEO guide offers a practical starting point. It provides a breakdown of how AI platforms choose what to cite, the technical foundations of GEO and the communication principles behind AI-optimised content.

Ready to see how your brand currently appears across AI platforms? Our GEO audit gives you a clear picture of where you stand and what to do next.

Or if you’re looking for a quick-reference tool, our AI Visibility Checklist covers the practical steps you can take right now, from technical fixes to content and PR actions, to improve how AI systems find and cite your brand.