Lead Story
A lot of your potential customers are skipping “Googling” as we knew it — they’re asking AI bots. Half of B2B buyers now start their shopping research inside a chatbot, not a search engine. This changes everything about how distributors must show up online.
What’s Happening
A lot of your potential customers are skipping “Googling” as we knew it — they’re asking AI bots. Half of B2B buyers now start their shopping research inside a chatbot, not a search engine.
8
AI searches end with no click at all
50
B2B buyers start research inside a chatbot, not a search engine.
Right now, AI is mostly just answering questions. Soon, AI agents could compare suppliers, check prices, and place orders for buyers without specialized prompts. For distributors, that means keeping product, pricing, and inventory data accurate, connected, and discoverable.
“The distributors who’ll do well in this shift aren’t the ones who slap a chatbot onto their homepage. They’re the ones whose product info, pricing, and stock levels are accurate and easy for any system — including an AI agent — to read correctly.”
Check out G2’s 2026 AI Search Insight Report to learn more about how AI search is changing the B2B software buying journey.
Latest Drop
Building a Digital Commerce Strategy That Actually Works
Karthik Chidambaram sits down with Jason Nyhus, President of North America at Shopware, to discuss what it takes for distributors to succeed in digital commerce. Technology should adapt to how the business operates — not force it to change.
