Episode 115
94% of Buyers Already Looked You Up on AI. Here’s What They Found.
There is a conversation happening about you before you are ever in the room.
Before your next prospect picks up the phone, they have probably already typed your name into ChatGPT. They have looked at what comes up. They have formed an opinion. And they have moved on to the next thing on their list.
That is the new first impression. And most people have no idea what it looks like.
In this episode, Monique de Maio unpacks what the data is actually telling us about how B2B buyers make decisions in 2026 and what it means for how you show up. She shares the story of a cybersecurity CEO whose consistent thought leadership content became part of how an acquiring company assessed him, not just his pitch deck, but his published point of view. And she gives you seven moves you can make starting this week.
The stat that drives this conversation: 94% of B2B buyers are now using generative AI somewhere in their buying process. LinkedIn has gone from the 11th to the 1st most-cited domain for professional AI search queries in a matter of months. And if your content could belong to anyone, an AI system will treat it that way.
In this episode:
→ Why buyers are meeting AI before they meet you, and what AI is saying
→ How LinkedIn became the #1 source for professional AI citations
→ The cybersecurity CEO who was acquired, in part, because of what he published
→ Why vague content has become invisible and specific content gets cited
→ How your newsletter may now be building an AI signal with your prospects
→ Seven moves to improve your visibility starting this week
Different is better than better. This episode is about what that looks like in the AI era.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Different is better than better: Monique’s foundational principle
01:24 – The stat that changes everything: 94% of B2B buyers use AI in their buying process
02:22 – LinkedIn is now the #1 AI-cited domain for professional queries
03:21 – Stop measuring rankings. Start measuring citations.
04:19 – How to reverse-engineer your content from the questions buyers are actually asking
05:37 – Google AI Overviews: 48% of all searches, and climbing
07:08 – The newsletter-as-AI-signal: Google’s Personal Intelligence feature explained
08:31 – The cybersecurity CEO who got acquired, in part, because of his content
09:27 – Vague is out. Specific wins. Here is what that looks like.
11:34 – AI can tell the difference between lived experience and recycled research
13:26 – Seven moves for visibility in the AI era
15:50 – If your content could belong to anyone, it belongs to no one
Referenced in this episode:
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