Over the last few centuries, there have been three major compressions in the buying journey. First, The Yellow Pages collapsed the market into a single book. Then Larry Page's PageRank compressed that book into a single page of results. Now, we're watching the third era of compression unfold in real time. You don't buy the biggest ad or earn the top spot on Google — you win the answer.
What's changed isn't just where buyers start, it's what they're doing throughout the entire journey. They've moved from reference to inference. Instead of weeks of research, they're using ChatGPT to one-shot their shortlists. Today, 51% start their research with an AI chatbot more often than Google, and 71% rely on AI chatbots somewhere in the software research process. The starting point hasn't just shifted. It's split.
G2 has been tracking how software buyers research, evaluate, and choose software for over a decade. This moment feels different because AI chatbots are compressing the research process so dramatically that vendors who don't show up in the first answer are squeezed out before the conversation even starts. We’ve moved past AI as an intelligence layer and are staring squarely at AI as a trust layer.
This report was created to understand exactly what that shift means for software vendors. We polled over 1,000 B2B software buyers and decision-makers and learned that while 93% say AI chatbots have fundamentally changed how they conduct research, AI is not replacing the buying process. Instead, it’s redirecting it in ways that have very specific implications for which vendors get found, trusted, and ultimately, selected.
The buyer journey has split into two distinct starting points: traditional search and AI search. More than half of B2B software buyers now say they start their research with an AI chatbot more often than Google. That means the first impression of your brand, category, and competitors is increasingly formed inside an AI answer, before a buyer visits a vendor's website or speaks to their team.
We're no longer watching a trend take shape. AI chat is now a mainstream research motion that B2B software buyers actively use to get oriented, compare options, and narrow the field.
AI chatbots have earned a seat in every stage of the funnel. Buyers haven't abandoned traditional search — 80% still use Google somewhere in their buying journey — but they increasingly see it as a complementary function rather than an essential one. Asking a chatbot for answers is now the first move for half of buyers.
That means the first impression of your brand, category, and competitors is often formed inside an AI answer, before a buyer visits a vendor's site or speaks to Sales.
This is a behavioral shift that has reached a tipping point much faster than most vendors expected. As AI search capabilities improve, expect more buyers to become AI-first in their research motion.
What this means for vendors:
"I'm more productive with AI search than traditional search engines."
AI didn't just give buyers a new starting point — it drastically improved their outcome. 53% say their software research is more productive with AI search than with traditional search. That number is up sharply from 36% just 7 months ago.
The gains are real. Buyers who once needed weeks to compare vendors can now use their favorite AI chatbot to get a usable synthesis in minutes. And, they don't just start with a prompt. They leverage chat to run comparisons, and ultimately, to decide.
That type of productivity gain is sticky, and it's why usage keeps growing. 86% of B2B buyers increased their use of AI chatbots for software research in the past year.
What this means for vendors:
This is the Answer Economy. If AI chatbots don't name you in their recommendations, you’re not even in the running. Nearly 7 in 10 B2B software buyers chose a different software vendor than expected in their last buying cycle because of guidance from an AI chatbot. Winning the citation isn’t enough anymore — software vendors need to win the answer.
Simply being mentioned by AI chatbots carries weight for today’s software buyer, as 85% think more highly of a vendor cited by AI in its answer.
It’s not just perception, though — AI chatbots are curating shortlists and impacting purchasing decisions. 69% of software buyers we polled said that an AI chatbot led them to select a different software vendor than initially planned. 33% purchased from a vendor they'd never previously heard of before.
The same mechanism that lifts an unknown vendor into contention can also exclude a well-known category leader. That is a glaring case to strengthen answer engine optimization (AEO) strategies immediately.
What this means for vendors:
Which of the following best describes your initial type of AI prompt when researching software?
Buyers who use AI chatbots to research software aren't easing into it. They lead with commercial intent from the very first prompt.
Two-thirds start with category or competitor queries. These are evaluation prompts designed to return a list of best-of-breed vendors buyers can easily evaluate. Only one in five start with questions about requirements or process.
And the process moves fast. Four out of five buyers told us AI chatbots helped accelerate their purchasing decision, and 83% said they felt more confident in their final choice.
What this means for vendors:
When using AI chatbots for software research, how has AI affected the speed of your purchasing decisions?
During your most recent software eval, did an AI chatbot influence the software vendor you ultimately selected?
In the answer economy, trust is the new currency. AI chatbots need verified signals to distinguish from noise, and buyers expect proof that the answers returned by the chatbot are sourced from real human experiences. Both look to software review sites to check their work before taking their next action.
Software buyers trust AI chatbots, but they still want receipts.
When we asked buyers what would increase their confidence in an AI chatbot’s answer, the #1 response was a citation from a review site. That matters because review platforms feed the large language models (LLM) that generate the responses buyers are looking for.
AI chatbots run on peer reviews, and review sites are the #2 source influencing buyer shortlists. Customer voice across review sites like G2 shapes how a chatbot perceives your brand, and what it ultimately returns to buyers.
This effect is strongest among the most experienced AI chatbot users. Self-identified Power users leveraging chatbots daily cite review sites as their #1 confidence signal at an even higher rate (50%) than the general B2B software buyer population. The most AI-fluent buyers show the strongest relative preference for review citations over every other source.
What this means for vendors:
Review sites are the only source besides AI chatbots that gains influence deeper into the funnel.
Review sites aren't just shaping which vendors get discovered — they're contributing to which vendors get chosen. This reinforces why they work as a system. AI chatbots build the shortlist, review sites validate it, and buyers put increasing confidence in both sources as the stakes get higher.
What this means for vendors:
AI chatbots get it wrong more often than people realize. In fact, 64% of buyers say they encounter inaccuracies often (a few times per month) or very often (weekly or more). But the pace it enables is too valuable to give up. So, they verify.
When AI chatbots leave out a brand they trust, or get something wrong about one they know, most buyers seek out peer reviews for a second opinion.
Buyers also perceive cross-chatbot consistency as a top trust signal. If ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude all describe a vendor the same way, that builds confidence, even though the mechanism behind that motion is not something vendors can directly engineer. Inconsistencies represent a red flag to buyers, and they'll dig deeper to find out which version is true.
What this means for vendors:
Nearly two-thirds spend 6+ hours a week leveraging AI chatbots for work — notably higher than 7 months ago — and more than 40% self-identify as daily power users. They're running head-to-head vendor comparisons, creating Deep Research reports, and using Thinking mode for high-stakes evaluations.
Primary use cases for AI when researching software.
Buyers aren't asking AI chatbots to orient them in a new category. They already know what they're looking for. Comparing vendor strengths and weaknesses is the #1 reason for using AI chatbots in software research, ahead of basic product research, vendor identification, and use case validation.
This clearly illustrates how and where chatbots are gaining ground in software buying. While it’s collapsing the top-of-funnel discovery stage, it’s also extending deeper middle and bottom of the funnel actions. Buyers are using AI chatbots to draft requests for proposals (RFP), work through pricing and packaging options. and validate fit.
What this means for vendors:
When we examined the types of AI chat tools buyers were using to conduct software research, most buyers (44%) told us they default to “Thinking” or “Reasoning” models. They deliberately choose these slower, more thorough output options when the decision matters.
But, research tools like Deep Research are more popular than people realize. Just 6% of buyers said they don’t use Deep Research — which generates structured, multi-source evaluation reports in minutes. This high adoption further indicates that today’s buyer is running complex, multi-source evaluations with AI search.
When asked how it holds up next to standard models, nearly half of buyers said the output from Deep Research is meaningfully better. These are real evaluation workflows that now live inside a chatbot, rather than being shared by a handful of employees on the project team.
What this means for vendors:
ChatGPT is the dominant AI chatbot for work, and its usage is concentrated at the top of the funnel. But, the landscape is shifting fast — Claude more than doubled its share in the past seven months, while Copilot and Perplexity both declined sharply. Meanwhile, the race for second place is wide open. Gemini nearly doubles its share between discovery and consideration, and Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity all hold steady or gain ground as buyers move deeper into the funnel.
| ChatGPT | 61% | 65% | 53% | 57% | 66% | 54% | 66% |
| Gemini | 14% | 14% | 23% | 28% | 16% | 24% | 21% |
| Copilot | 10% | 7% | 10% | 8% | 5% | 11% | 6% |
| Claude | 8% | 10% | 10% | 3% | 6% | 2% | 6% |
| Perplexity | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 5% | 0% |
| None | 3% | 1% | 0% | 2% | 1% | 3% | 0% |
| Financial Services | Healthcare | Manufacturing | Retail | Technology | Services | Construction |
|---|
| ChatGPT | 58% | 62% | 70% | 57% |
| Gemini | 21% | 19% | 14% | 18% |
| Copilot | 6% | 8% | 10% | 13% |
| Claude | 7% | 7% | 3% | 6% |
| Perplexity | 2% | 1% | 1% | 3% |
| None | 2% | 1% | 0% | 2% |
| SMB | Mid Market | Enterprise | Large Enterprise |
|---|
ChatGPT leads across every industry and company size, but the margins vary. In manufacturing, ChatGPT's lead shrinks to nearly 10 points below its average while Gemini picks up 23%. Construction shows a similar pattern. In enterprise and large enterprise environments, Copilot holds a 10–13% share, which may be driven by Microsoft's bundled distribution through Microsoft 365. Claude's strongest showing is in the small business (SMB) sector (7.3%), which tracks with its reputation among technical early adopters.
What this means for vendors:
| ChatGPT | 58% | 61% | 66% |
| Gemini | 18% | 18% | 23% |
| Copilot | 8% | 9% | 4% |
| Claude | 8% | 6% | 3% |
| Perplexity | 3% | 2% | 2% |
| Individual Contributors | Manager / Director / VP | C-Suite |
|---|
| ChatGPT | 64% | 68% | 62% | 56% | 62% | 51% | 49% |
| Gemini | 16% | 17% | 18% | 16% | 23% | 25% | 29% |
| Copilot | 9% | 9% | 9% | 10% | 7% | 9% | 10% |
| Claude | 4% | 4% | 8% | 9% | 5% | 12% | 5% |
| Perplexity | 2% | 0% | 2% | 2% | 0% | 1% | 0% |
| Info Technology | Senior Management | Accounting / Finance | Purchasing / Procurement | Operations | Engineering / R&D | Service / Support |
|---|
Using G2's AI Custom Research (AICR) solution, we conducted interviews with 39 B2B software marketers globally, exploring their experiences with the rise of AI-driven search and how they’re adapting to this shift.
The vendors who win in the era of AI-powered search will be the ones who invest in the trust infrastructure that AI depends on. Here are three things you can do today.
G2 fielded an online survey among 1,076 B2B decision makers responsible for, or influencing, purchase decisions for departments, multiple departments, operating units, or entire businesses. Respondents had job titles ranging from individual contributor to manager, director, vice president, or higher.
To maximize differentiation for vendors, this survey defines small-medium business (SMB) as a company with 1-250 employees, mid-market as a company with 250-1,000 employees, enterprise as a company with 1,000-5,000 employees, and large enterprise as a company with 5,000+ employees. The survey was conducted in March 2026 and includes a global pool of respondents across North America, EMEA, and APAC.
Qualitative research was conducted through over 39 interviews with B2B software marketers through G2’s AI Custom Research (AICR). Learn more about how you can use AICR here. Generative AI reasoning models were used to define the study’s focus areas, optimize survey design, and analyze results to inspire writing and data visualizations.
G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted data source for B2B software, helping businesses reach their peak potential by enabling confident buying and go-to-market decisions. Offering trusted data, authentic peer reviews, and real-time market intelligence, the G2 ecosystem — which includes Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp — serves more than 200 million annual buyers, representing teams at every Fortune 500 company.
As buyers increasingly shift from traditional search to AI search platforms, G2 has become the most-cited B2B software source across those AI-first channels where software discovery happens. Leading software and services companies like Salesforce, IBM, SAP, Adobe, and Clay also trust G2 to influence discovery, build brand credibility, reach in-market buyers, and accelerate revenue growth. To learn more, visit www.g2.com and follow us on LinkedIn.