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Study · bvik Tag der Industriekommunikation 2026
94% of B2B buyers find suppliers with AI tools – how visible are the TIK participants there?
We tested 62 websites of TIK participants. How visible are they in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot? We fired off 12,400 prompts and analyzed the answers, most recently in September 2026.
- 62
- B2B industrial companies, each its own category
- 12,400
- AI answers analyzed
- 106,795
- deduplicated brand mentions
- 222,056
- citations
Why it matters
If you are not named, you are not asked.
According to a Forrester study, the share of B2B decision-makers using AI systems for search has risen to 94%. If a company does not appear in the answer, its chance of an inquiry drops.
Inquiries often consider only 3–5 companies. Whoever does not make it into the AI answer does not exist for the buyer in that moment.
~8
brands a typical AI answer names
4,858
competitor brands we discovered in total
How strong is the top?
Even the most visible brand holds only a small share.
Share of Voice is a brand’s share of all brand mentions in its category. The highest value is 20.7%. Only a single participant exceeds 20%.
On average, participants hold 6.8% of their own category. Only 17 of 62 reach 10% at all, and a single one exceeds 20%.
Distribution across all 62 participants
2
0%
9
under 2%
11
2–5%
23
5–10%
16
10–20%
1
over 20%
Who wins the AI answer?
Even on home turf, a competitor usually leads.
Every question targeted the participant’s core business. Still, in 43 of 62 categories the most-named brand is not them but a competitor.
19
participant leads
43
competitor leads
28 of 62 do not lead in a single one of the four models. 14 do not even rank in the top 10 of their own field, and 2 appear in no answer at all.
62
participants total
48
in the top 10 of their category
33
in the top 3
19
the most-named brand
Visibility is not stable
Ask the same question five times — and the answer changes.
We sent each question to the same model five times. Even participants that appear at all are missing from all five runs in 43% of cases. No model is exempt.
ChatGPT is the most stable at 33% unstable mentions. Copilot most often makes participants disappear between two identical runs (54%), with Perplexity close behind (50%).
That is why a one-off check tells you almost nothing. Visibility in AI answers has to be measured continuously.
Share of unstable mentions per model
- Copilot54.0%
- Perplexity50.0%
- Gemini40.8%
- ChatGPT32.7%
One model is not the market
Each model tells a different story.
Visibility in ChatGPT does not automatically mean visibility in Gemini, Perplexity or Copilot. And more live search does not mean more brand visibility.
| Model | Live web search | Avg brands / answer | Participants invisible |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 99.5 % | 8.40 | 6 |
| Perplexity | 100.0 % | 7.14 | 8 |
| Copilot | 98.1 % | 9.66 | 9 |
| Gemini | 84.8 % | 9.25 | 4 |
Perplexity triggers a live web search on every answer (100%), yet names the fewest brands per answer and makes 8 participants disappear entirely in their own category. Gemini delivers sources least often (85%) but makes the fewest participants disappear (4). Live search and visibility are not the same thing.
Across all brands, 85.8% are missing from at least one of the four models, 71.6% from at least two. Only 14.2% appear in all four. Of the 62 participants, 13 are invisible in at least one model, and 2 in all four.
Which brands the AI prefers
The AI has incumbents — and they bleed into other categories.
A few large brands appear across many categories. Specialists therefore compete not only with their direct rivals but with the corporations the model knows as a safe answer.
Siemens
Siemens alone is named 1,546 times, spread across 28 of the 62 categories, and is often the category leader of other participants.
Whoever is not present in their category cedes it to the brands the model knows as a safe answer.
- Siemens1,546in 28 categories
- Bosch839in 16 categories
- ABB827in 17 categories
- Schneider Electric590in 16 categories
- Beckhoff538in 6 categories
- Emerson493in 10 categories
- KSB467in 5 categories
- Liebherr391in 6 categories
- Phoenix Contact390in 10 categories
- Eaton379in 8 categories
What the AI builds its answers from
The answer is built from third-party sources, not your website.
B2B AI answers lean on structured external sources: supplier portals, industry directories, market research, manufacturer sites and Wikipedia.
Most-cited domains
- 1wlw.de6,791
- 2industrystock.de5,130
- 3mordorintelligence.com3,046
- 4europages.de2,674
- 5induux.de2,053
- 6komaxgroup.com1,945
- 7liebherr.com1,725
- 8siemens.com1,723
Six source types carry the answers
B2B directories & supplier portals
wlw, industrystock, europages, induux
Market research
Mordor Intelligence, GM Insights
Manufacturer & participant sites
Siemens, Liebherr, Phoenix Contact, Komax
Knowledge bases
Wikipedia DE / EN
Trade portals & industry media
chemie.de, other trade sites
Distributor, partner & association sites
distributors, associations, marketplaces
Only around 10% of citations point to the company’s own website.
Of 222,056 citations, only 21,536 point to the participant’s own domain; among citations backed by the answer text it is 8%. Onpage is the base — offpage is what the AI explains your brand from. Citation gaps are the new content gaps.
10%
Own website
90%
External sources
What companies can do now
From finding to fix.
GEO is not a one-off audit. Five levers to measurably improve your position in AI answers.
Which top sources cite your competitors but not you? Is your brand missing from wlw, induux, europages, industrystock or relevant trade portals — and are the entries current and semantically correct?
What we measured
Brand share in AI answers, not Google rankings.
Ten neutral category questions per participant, sent verbatim and without brand names. Each question targeted the participant’s core business. Competitors were discovered from the answers, not predefined.
- 62
- participants, each its own category
- 10
- neutral prompts per participant
- 4
- AI models: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot
- 5
- iterations per prompt and model
„Welche Firmen sind gut im Bereich Schließsysteme und Zutrittskontrolle?“
„Gibt es gute Alternativen zu den großen Anbietern für Schließsysteme und Zutrittskontrolle?“
„Welche Unternehmen sollte ich vergleichen, wenn ich industrielle Sterilisation brauche?“
„Welche Anbieter im Bereich industrielle Sterilisation und Strahlenvernetzung haben einen guten Ruf?“
Methodology & notes
- Market and language: Germany, German, B2B industry. The findings apply to this context and do not generalize to other markets or sectors.
- Share of Voice is a brand’s share of all deduplicated brand mentions in its category. Each brand is counted once per answer.
- Web search is derived from delivered sources and background search queries. Gemini delivered sources for 85% of answers in this survey and for none in the June survey. That is a change in data delivery, not a model finding.
- As of September 2026 (survey 21 Sep 2026, first published June 2026). All figures were recomputed directly against the raw analysis database. Citations count every source a model fetched or displayed; 119,047 of them are backed by the answer text.
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