Buyers increasingly rely on AI agents and tools like Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews to compare vendors before any direct contact. AI tools aggregate and synthesize data from the public web, including websites, social conversations, and video platforms, producing contextual, human-like answers. AI systems weight sources unequally: Profound found LinkedIn contributes 13% of citations in Google AI Overviews and 5.3% in Perplexity, while Reddit contributes 21% and 46.7% respectively. As a result, traditional SEO alone no longer guarantees discovery. B2B brands need visible, active social footprints—especially on LinkedIn and high-impact platforms—to appear in AI-generated summaries guiding buyer decisions.
Ask any B2B buyer how they research vendors today, and their process will likely sound very different from what it did even a year ago. Instead of heading straight to search engines or downloading content, buyers are now turning to AI for vendor comparisons, using Perplexity to summarize options or relying on Google's AI Overviews for recommendations. Your next customer may have already "spoken" to an AI agent about your brand before they've ever spoken to you.
This shift means traditional SEO tactics are no longer enough. A brand's AI search visibility has become a new strategic KPI, and it's being shaped not just by their website but by their presence across social platforms like Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube and beyond. AI is now a first-impression engine. Today's AI tools are trained to gather data from across the public web. They synthesize everything from structured websites to social conversations to generate contextual, "human-like" answers.
And they're not treating all content sources equally. According to a recent Profound study, LinkedIn accounts for 13% of citations in Google AI Overviews and 5.3% in Perplexity, making it one of the top‑ranked professional platforms cited by AI. By comparison, Reddit leads with 21% in Google AI Overviews and 46.7% in Perplexity, but LinkedIn's presence is particularly impactful in B2B contexts. For brands targeting decision makers, optimizing for LinkedIn is critical for AI visibility.
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