Ask a B2B buyer where they started their last vendor shortlist and, for the first time, the most common answer isn't Google. It's ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Copilot. That flip happened fast — inside twelve months — and the data below shows exactly how fast, what the AI engines choose to cite, and what those AI-referred visitors are worth once they land.
What this covers
- Buyer behaviour: the chatbot is now the front door
- What actually gets cited: authority, freshness, and extractable answers
- Authority still compounds
- Freshness is a hard filter, not a nice-to-have
- Structure decides whether you get quoted
- The key statistics at a glance
This is a technical summary. The full guide — with the data, tables and worked examples — is on our site: *B2B Buyers Now Start Vendor Research in AI Chatbots: The 2026 Statistics*.
LeadsNow AI builds pay-per-result AI lead generation and answer-engine-optimisation systems in Australia.
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