B2B SaaS
Does your product make the AI shortlist?
Half of B2B software buyers now start with an AI chat, not Google. If AI doesn't name you, you never make the shortlist. We test real buyer questions across three engines and show where your product stands, with an engineering-grade fix list.
The selection question moved into the chat window
G2's research, published April 2026, surveyed 1,076 B2B software buyers and found that 51% now start their software research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google. A year earlier the same question measured 29%. G2's own conclusion sentence: vendors absent from AI answers never make the shortlist.
The shortlist itself is assembled from sources a vendor does not control: review platforms, comparison pages, docs, community threads. A product whose story lives only on its own website competes for a slice of that surface, and the slice is small.
Buyers ask the comparison forms directly: "X vs Y", "alternatives to [incumbent]", "best [category] for [company size]". Whoever the third-party sources cover enters the answer; whoever they skip does not. For challengers, that mechanic is the cheapest door into a category an incumbent otherwise locks.
Source for the buyer-behavior figures: G2 research, The Answer Economy (vendor survey; G2 is a software review platform).
Start research with an AI chatbot more often than Google
up from 29% a year earlier
Said AI answers changed which vendor they chose
the decision is already AI-shaped
Bought from a vendor they had never heard of before researching
absence hands deals to named competitors
All figures: G2 research, The Answer Economy, surveying 1,076 B2B software buyers, published April 2026. Vendor survey, labeled as such.
What the research shows
Every figure on this page comes from one source: G2's research, The Answer Economy, a survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers published in April 2026. One vendor survey, labeled as such, carried as far as its sample allows.
51%
of B2B software buyers now start research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, up from 29% a year earlier. The research was published in April 2026.
69%
of buyers said AI answers changed which vendor they chose. The answer doesn't just inform the decision; in most cases it changes it.
1 in 3
bought from a vendor they had never heard of before researching. AI answers put unfamiliar names on the table, and buyers act on them. If the engine never names your product, this door stays closed for you while it opens for whoever is named.
What buyers ask AI
Example questions, illustrative"Vanta vs Drata: which is better for a 50-person startup?"
"Cheapest CRM for a 10-person sales team"
"What should we use for product analytics on a mobile app?"
"Alternatives to [category leader] for SMB budgets"
"Which invoicing tools integrate with Stripe?"
Constructed examples based on common buyer questions, not captured from real sessions. The Written Diagnosis replaces them with the questions your actual buyers ask.
How the shortlist looks without you
"For a 50-person startup, Vanta and Drata are the most established options for SOC 2 compliance automation. Both handle evidence collection and auditor workflows. I don't have enough reliable information about other tools in this category to compare them confidently."
Pattern we see repeatedly: the shortlist forms from the names with the largest review and comparison footprint. Challengers aren't rejected; they're absent from the sources the answer draws on.
Six checks you can run today
No tools needed beyond the engines themselves. Write down what you see each time; the pattern across answers is the finding.
Open a fresh ChatGPT session and ask the shortlist question: "Best [category] tool for [company size]?" Note who is named, and who is not.
Ask the comparison form: "[Incumbent] alternatives for [budget or team size]". These are the questions challengers can win; note whether your product appears.
Ask an integration question your buyers ask: "Which [category] tools integrate with [platform]?" Check that what the answer claims about your integrations is true.
Look at what the answer cites: review platforms, comparison pages, docs, community threads. Your citation surface lives there, not only on your site.
Run the same question on Perplexity and Gemini. Note whether the same shortlist appears, and whether the facts about your product match across engines.
Repeat the same question a week later. Single runs mislead; the pattern across engines and time is the real signal.
From free check to written diagnosis
The free check runs against your homepage and reports seven technical aspects that decide whether AI engines can read your site at all. It is not SaaS-specific, and it says so on the result.
The Written Diagnosis ($490) answers the buyer question for your category: 30 buyer-style questions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, run twice over two days, written up as a report of who makes the shortlist in your category, where your product stands, and which facts engines get wrong about it. The Fix Sprint ($1,250) executes that fix list for you. Monthly monitoring tracks how the shortlists shift as engines update.
Keep reading
Questions SaaS teams ask
Do B2B buyers really start with AI now?
G2's research, published April 2026, surveyed 1,076 B2B software buyers: 51% now start their research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, up from 29% a year earlier. G2's conclusion: vendors absent from AI answers never make the shortlist.
What happens if AI answers don't mention our product?
Buyers still choose, but from the names they were given. In the same survey, 69% of buyers said AI answers changed which vendor they chose, and one in three bought from a vendor they had never heard of before researching. Absence is not lost exposure; it is deals handed to the competitors the engine does name.
Where do AI engines get facts about SaaS products?
Shortlists form from sources beyond the vendor's own website: review platforms, comparison pages, docs, and community threads. What those sources say about your product (and whether they mention it at all) decides the answer. That is why fixing only your own site rarely changes what engines say.
We are the challenger, not the incumbent. Where can we win?
Comparison questions are the challenger's lever. Buyers explicitly ask for alternatives to incumbents and for head-to-head comparisons; whoever those third-party sources cover can enter the answer. Consistent, factual coverage across review platforms and comparison content is the entry path, not outspending the incumbent.
What does the free check cover?
The free check examines seven technical aspects of your homepage instantly and shows the result of each. It tells you whether AI engines can read your site at all, a precondition for being named or described correctly. No signup required.
See whether AI shortlists your product
The free check runs instantly against your homepage. No signup, no cost.
Run the free check