Vantage AI Visibility Tool
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Quick Answer
B2B software buyers now start in AI chatbots, and a recommendation changes who gets considered. ChatGPT credits a recommended tool’s own website only about 12% of the time, so being recommended depends on what other sources say about you. To get recommended, publish fair comparison pages in list and table form, earn mentions on independent sites, keep your facts consistent everywhere and track a fixed set of buyer prompts. Skyfield does this work through its GEO service.
A software vendor used to find out it lost a deal when the prospect said so. Now the loss can happen in a chat window the vendor never sees. The buyer asks for the best tool in a category, gets a short list and contacts only the names on it.
How B2B buyers use ChatGPT
G2’s March 2026 survey of 1,076 software buyers, reported by Demand Gen Report, found 51% now begin their research in an AI chatbot and 71% rely on chatbots for software research. Chatbots are also changing outcomes: 69% of buyers chose a different vendor than they first planned, and 33% bought from a vendor they had never heard of.
G2 sells software review services, so read its survey as the view of a party with a stake in the topic. The direction still matches what Skyfield sees: buyers arrive with a shortlist already formed.
What ChatGPT cites when it recommends software
DerivateX, an agency, tested 40 B2B SaaS categories with 10 runs each in 2026 and logged 233 recommendations. ChatGPT cited the recommended tool’s own site only 11.6% of the time. Independent blogs, comparison pages and other vendors’ content made up most of the rest, major media and Reddit-style communities followed, and G2, Capterra and TrustRadius together drew 0.9%.
The sample is small and the study comes from an agency, so treat the exact shares as directional. The pattern agrees with AirOps’ 2026 finding that 85% of brand mentions in AI answers come from external domains. A strong product site is the floor.
What cited pages have in common
DerivateX also profiled the pages that won citations.
| Rank | Trait of cited pages | Share of cited pages | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Uses list structure | 100% | Lead with ranked or bulleted options, not long paragraphs |
| 2 | Current year in the title | 78% | Date every comparison and refresh it on a schedule |
| 3 | Includes a comparison table | 68% | Put pricing, fit and limits side by side in plain rows |
| 4 | Includes an FAQ section | 56% | Answer the exact follow-up questions buyers ask |
Our position: become the source
Caleb Hester, Skyfield’s founder, advises B2B software teams to treat AI visibility as a reputation problem with a format requirement. If ChatGPT credits other sites for your recommendation, those sites decide your visibility, so you need to be present on them with facts that match your own. Review-site profiles still matter to buyers, but one small study found no citations from them, so do not count them as your AI strategy.
A 5 step plan to get recommended
- Audit your prompts. Test 20 buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, and log mentions, descriptions and cited sources.
- Publish fair comparison pages. Build list-style pages with a table of pricing, best fit and limits, dated and refreshed. These match the traits above.
- Earn third-party mentions. Pitch independent comparison sites, industry publications and community threads where buyers already ask for recommendations.
- Align your facts. Keep your name, pricing, integrations and positioning the same on your site, schema and every profile.
- Measure monthly. Track mentions as visibility and AI referral sessions in GA4, and read both with the search value ledger.
The earlier post on why portfolio companies get skipped in AI answers covers the entity side in more depth, and SEO still supplies the pages these answers draw from.
What it looks like in practice
Skyfield’s case studies show citations growing with sustained work. Composidie’s Google AI Overview citations rose from 1 to 24 over 12 months, and School Outlet’s rose from 32 to 228 in the six months to August 2026. Results vary by company and category.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find out whether ChatGPT recommends my software?
Does ranking on Google get me recommended by ChatGPT?
Should I publish comparison pages that include my competitors?
External figures are as published through October 2026. The G2 survey and the DerivateX study each come from a company with a commercial interest in the topic, and the DerivateX sample is 233 recommendations, so read both as directional. The AirOps figure is carried from its 2026 analysis. Case study figures come from each client’s own Google reporting.
Sources
| Demand Gen Report | Half of B2B software buyers now start research with AI chatbots (G2, March 2026) |
| DerivateX Research | B2B SaaS AI citation study (2026) |
Founder and CEO, Skyfield Digital
Caleb Hester is the founder and owner of Skyfield Digital, bringing nearly a decade of hands on experience in SEO and digital marketing. He specializes in building search strategies that drive long term visibility, qualified traffic, and measurable growth. Caleb’s approach blends technical SEO, content strategy, and real world business insight to help brands compete and scale in increasingly competitive markets.
