A marketing expert has issued tips on how IT vendors and channel partners can ensure their services are recommended by AI answer engines, as a new report by marketing agency Visibility Wins asserts that ChatGPT and other AI tools have “changed how B2B IT buyers research”. The report, authored by Adam Grant, analyzed six AI tools—ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overview, Grok, and Google’s AI Mode—and how they decide which UK and Irish vendors, distributors and IT services providers to recommend. Visibility Wins’ research used data from 25,862 citations across 1,000 commercial-intent prompts. Across six major AI models, vendor and provider websites account for 73.1% of all citations, while independent third-party sources make up the remaining 26.9%. The report states that “the first AEO [answer engine optimisation] investment is making your owned content answer the buyer’s questions”. Grant advised vendors to “make it very clear, publicly, what they do, who they help, and where they have proof”, adding that “the businesses most likely to be recommended are the ones that make their expertise easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to validate”. He noted that “SEO is one component of AEO”.