Discoverability depends on presence in credible, independent sources: trade publications, association journals, research reports, white papers, case studies, and substantive thought leadership. Wikipedia, long treated as a low-priority concern, is now among the most frequently cited sources. Professional forums, industry discussion platforms, and niche outlets often carry more weight in AI citation than their audience size suggests. Content that originates directly from the company still has a role, though it is naturally viewed as self-serving. AI tends to place greater weight on information that is written to inform rather than persuade and is corroborated by independent, authoritative sources. Two practical implications follow. Content older than roughly a year loses traction significantly, challenging the assumption that strong material keeps working indefinitely. Tracking the prompts buyers use — and whether the company surfaces — should become an ongoing practice, not a one-time exercise. The Compounding Value of Market Authority As AI becomes more embedded in enterprise vendor research, the gap between organisations with consistent market authority and those without will widen. Organisations repeatedly represented in credible sources, associated with the right capabilities, and visible in the conversations buyers rely on will enter more evaluations from a stronger position.
The disciplines at the centre of this work are not new. Earned media, substantive content, expert commentary, and sustained presence in trusted outlets have long shaped market authority. What has changed is that their effect is now easier to observe. GEO, then, should not sit apart from communications as a separate function. It should be treated as an outcome of coordinated strategic communications across earned, owned, and paid channels. The work is still the work: define the story, support it with evidence, place it in credible channels, and repeat it consistently over time. What is new is the ability to see more clearly whether the market is hearing it.
That shift is already measurable. Forrester’s 2026 Buyers’ Journey Survey of nearly 18,000 global business buyers found that generative AI and conversational search now rank as the most influential sources for vendor research. Usage has climbed from 89% of buyers in 2025 to 94% in 2026.
Running the Right Audit
The work starts with inspection rather than production. Begin with the questions buyers are likely to ask — which vendors serve this market, what companies solve this problem, what are the leading platforms in this category — then compare the answers with how the company describes itself internally and wants to be understood. The goal is not just to see whether a company appears but how it appears: the category it is placed in, the capabilities associated with it, the competitors it is grouped with, and whether that reflects the company’s current strategy. For some companies, that gap is easy to see. A company may see itself as a broader workflow platform, for example, while buyers and AI systems still associate it with a legacy storage product. That distinction matters because visibility shapes how a company enters the conversations that influence shortlist formation and selection. Few organisations are measuring this systematically. In its analysis of 680 million AI citations, 6Sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report found that only 22% of marketers currently track AI visibility, while fewer than 26% plan to.
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SEPTEMBER 2026 Volume 48 No.3
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