AI Visibility Audit for B2B: Measure and Grow Your Visibility in AI Search
Buyers, engineers and executives now research suppliers in conversation with ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. The AI names a handful of companies, categorizes them and explains its choice. Companies that appear in these answers make the shortlist early and enter every sales conversation with a head start.
An AI visibility audit is a systematic measurement of how visible a company is in the answers of generative AI systems, how it is described there and which sources shape that picture. The results translate into a prioritized roadmap for PR, content and your website. In the language of search specialists, this is a GEO audit: the starting point of generative engine optimization, which we describe in detail on our GEO agency page.
With the B2B AI Visibility Audit from Ruess Group, you receive this AI search visibility audit for your markets, languages and competitors. We combine data-driven GEO analysis with decades of experience in systematic trade media PR, because the trade press is among the most important sources AI systems draw on. The result is a clear baseline, a reliable metric and a plan that expands your AI visibility step by step.
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What marketing leaders are asking today
The way B2B companies discover suppliers is changing faster than at any time in recent decades. In conversations with marketing directors and CMOs, we hear six questions again and again. Each of them can be answered with data, and each points to a concrete lever for growth.
How do we make the shortlist that forms in AI?
Generative AI has arrived in B2B buying. According to Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2026, twice as many business buyers name generative AI as their most important information source as any other source. 94 percent of buyers use AI in their purchasing process. At the same time, buying groups keep growing: on average, 13 internal stakeholders and 9 external influencers take part in a purchase decision.
Many of these people ask an AI first: Which manufacturers offer this application? What should we look for when selecting a supplier? Who has experience in our industry? The answers determine which suppliers make the shortlist, long before sales makes first contact. The audit shows you which of these questions already lead to your company and where the greatest potential lies.
Why do strong Google rankings deliver fewer visits today?
Many marketing teams see stable rankings generate fewer clicks than before. An analysis by SEOcrawl of 16,661 websites shows Google clicks down 15 percent year over year, and 20 percent for the median site (October 2026). Pew Research measures a click rate of 8 percent when Google shows an AI summary, compared with 15 percent on results pages with a classic list of links.
Rankings remain valuable, because most AI systems ground their answers in Google or Bing search. A second layer now comes on top: whether the AI selects your content as a source and names your company in its answer. The audit makes this second layer measurable.
How visible are we in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity?
For most companies, this question is still open. In Agentcy’s AI Visibility Index (March 2026, 104 senior B2B marketing leaders), 81 percent call AI visibility a blind spot in their marketing intelligence. 10 percent can currently connect AI touchpoints to revenue, and 26 percent have yet to assign ownership for the topic. Two thirds have checked how their brand appears in AI answers at least once; a quarter does so regularly.
Measuring ChatGPT visibility reliably requires a method that reflects how these systems work: AI answers vary from one query to the next. A robust picture emerges from many questions from your buyers’ perspective, several runs per question and a comparison across systems. LLM visibility also differs significantly between ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, because each system uses different search indexes and sources. Our audit is designed exactly for this.
Does AI describe our company correctly?
Growth depends on being visible and on being described accurately. 46 percent of the companies that assessed their position in AI answers found it mixed or inaccurate (Agentcy). In Forrester’s research, 20 percent of buyers say inaccurate information from AI systems made them less confident in their decision.
Typical patterns include the wrong category, older product generations, missing markets or a close association with competitors you have little in common with. Each of these deviations can be traced back to the sources the AI relies on. The audit makes these sources visible and therefore correctable. This is how strong AI brand visibility emerges, one that reflects your positioning accurately.
Why does AI recommend our competitors?
AI systems trust independent sources. In May 2026, Muck Rack analyzed more than 25 million links from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini answers: 84 percent of the cited sources are earned media, meaning trade press, research, associations and independent publications. Paid and advertorial content accounts for 0.3 percent. Journalism makes up 27 percent of the links, spread across more than 20,000 outlets, and more than half of the cited articles are less than twelve months old.
Companies that appear regularly in the trade media of their industry are mentioned more often by AI. The good news: this presence can be planned. The audit shows which media and websites have the greatest influence on AI answers in your industry and where your competitors are currently more visible.
How do we prove the impact of our PR in this new channel?
PR budgets need to hold their own with executive management and controlling. AI visibility opens a new, measurable perspective: the audit shows which of your publications AI uses as a source and which trade media are particularly effective for your category. Media relations thus become measurable in a channel that is growing in importance for supplier selection. Learn how we build PR for B2B companies on the page of our PR agency.