The B2B technology buying process has undergone a seismic shift in 2025, driven by the widespread adoption of AI in search and research processes. For technology vendors and their sales and marketing teams, understanding these changes is no longer optional – it’s essential for effectively engaging with today’s buyers.

Based on comprehensive research from TrustRadius surveying over 2,000 technology buyers and 490 vendors, this analysis reveals a growing “trust gap” between what buyers seek and how vendors engage.

Most notably, 72% of buyers now encounter Google’s AI Overviews during research, with 90% clicking through to source materials for verification. This verification behaviour signals both opportunity and challenge for B2B technology companies seeking to ensure their content remains discoverable and trustworthy.

The data reveals several critical trends reshaping the B2B technology buying landscape:

• AI is fundamentally changing information discovery and validation processes, with 40% of buyers reporting AI makes finding information easier (double from previous year) whilst simultaneously increasing the importance of trusted sources.
• Buyer trust in traditional sources has eroded significantly, with only 14% of buyers consulting analyst reports – a staggering 60% drop since 2022.
• Social proof dominates decision-making, with 77% of buyers reading user reviews and 54% speaking directly with current users before purchasing.
• The buying process has a defined timeline, with an average cycle of just 3.8 months and 82% of buyers having a leading candidate in mind when creating their shortlists.

For B2B technology vendors, these shifts demand new approaches to creating, distributing, and validating content. This analysis provides concrete strategies for adapting to this AI-driven landscape whilst building the trust necessary to influence decision-makers effectively.

Whether you’re responsible for competitive intelligence, market research, or strategic planning, this report provides data-backed insights needed to thrive in the new AI-driven B2B technology ecosystem.

Research Context

This analysis draws from TrustRadius’ 2025 buyer research report, “Bridging the Trust Gap: B2B Tech Buying in the Age of AI,” representing one of the most comprehensive examinations of technology buying behaviour in the market intelligence sector. The research methodology encompasses rigorous data collection from a diverse sample of 2,058 verified technology buyers and 490 technology vendors globally.

The TrustRadius research team has built a reputation for identifying early trends in B2B purchasing behaviour, having tracked this evolution for nearly a decade. Their longitudinal approach provides exceptional visibility into emerging patterns – particularly valuable when examining the rapid adoption of AI tools in market intelligence processes.

The research demographics ensure relevance to various intelligence functions within organisations:

• Buyer demographics span multiple generations: 9% Gen Z (18-27), 55% Millennial (28-43), 30% Gen X (44-59), and 6% Boomer (60+)
• Purchase price ranges capture diverse procurement scenarios: From sub-£10k tactical tools to enterprise solutions exceeding £100k
• Vendor perspectives include: C-suite executives (13%), marketing leadership (24%), sales leadership (13%), and multiple customer-facing roles

For market intelligence professionals, this dataset holds particular value in identifying how AI is reshaping information discovery, verification, and application processes across different organisation sizes and industries. The research isolates factors that differentiate high-performing vendors (self-rated A or above) from average performers, providing actionable benchmarks for market intelligence practice improvement.

The year-over-year comparisons between 2024 and 2025 data reveal acceleration in key trends, making this analysis especially timely for intelligence professionals seeking to adapt their methodologies to the rapidly evolving landscape.

How AI is Reshaping B2B Technology Buying Research

The B2B technology buying landscape has undergone profound transformation as artificial intelligence becomes embedded in the research process. For technology vendors, this evolution demands strategic adaptation across content creation, distribution, and validation practices.

The AI Overview Revolution in Information Discovery

The most significant development is Google’s AI Overviews, now encountered by 72% of technology buyers during their research process. These machine-generated summaries fundamentally alter how product information is discovered:

For B2B technology companies, this presents a complex challenge: traditional discoverability metrics are becoming less reliable, but engagement quality is increasing. The data shows significant regional variation in AI Overview adoption – 84% of APAC buyers encounter them versus just 59% in EMEA – suggesting the need for regional adaptation in content strategies.

The Trust-Verification Paradox in AI-Driven Research

Despite growing reliance on AI-generated content, the research reveals an interesting paradox: the most frequent users of AI tools report the highest scepticism:

• 62% of frequent AI users report “always or very often” fact-checking information
• 90% of buyers click through to sources cited in AI Overviews
• Trust in AI tools has increased 19% year-over-year, but verification behaviour has intensified

For technology vendors, this creates a dual imperative: optimising content for AI discovery whilst simultaneously strengthening source credibility. Buyers are increasingly seeking sources that bridge this gap by providing both AI-friendly summaries and robust evidence.

Generational Shifts in Information Consumption

The research identifies significant differences in how generational cohorts approach AI in buying research:

• 15% of Gen Z buyers use AI extensively (nearly double the 8% overall average)
• 30% of Gen Z report high trust in AI-generated content (vs. 20% overall)
• Enterprise buyers (purchasing products >£100k) show higher AI adoption, with 39% using AI “a little bit” compared to 30% of all buyers

This presents a strategic opportunity for technology vendors targeting younger decision-makers or enterprise clients. The data suggests these segments will increasingly expect AI-enhanced content delivery, particularly through interactive formats that allow manipulation and validation of underlying data.

SEO Disruption and the New B2B Content Visibility

The traditional SEO landscape that B2B technology companies relied upon for visibility has been fundamentally disrupted:

• AI Overviews increasingly answer simple queries without clicks
• Traffic patterns show shifts for informational content but improved quality of remaining engagement
• 90% of buyers click through sources cited in AI Overviews, creating a new premium on being the authoritative citation

For B2B technology vendors, this requires a shift from volume-based content creation to authority-building strategies that position content as verification-worthy. The research indicates vendors are experiencing traffic fluctuations due to AI Overviews, necessitating new visibility metrics focused on citation frequency rather than traditional page views.

The implications for technology companies are clear: AI is not merely another channel but a fundamental restructuring of how information is discovered, validated, and applied. Success in this environment requires optimisation for both AI algorithms and human verification behaviours simultaneously.

The Growing Trust Gap: What The Research Reveals About B2B Buyer Behaviour

The TrustRadius report uncovers a widening chasm between how vendors supply information and how buyers consume it – a “trust gap” that fundamentally alters the effectiveness of B2B marketing and sales approaches. This shift signals the need for wholesale reconsideration of how companies engage with potential customers.

The Decline of Traditional Authority Sources

Perhaps the most startling revelation is the precipitous decline in reliance on analyst reports:

• Only 14% of buyers now consult analyst reports during purchase processes, representing a 60% decline since 2022
• This decline accelerated from the 16% usage recorded in 2024, suggesting a steepening trend
• Vendor-supplied resources remain frequently consulted but rank lower in buyer influence

This trust erosion extends beyond any single source type, representing a fundamental shift in what buyers consider credible information. For B2B vendors, this requires rethinking which external sources are worth pursuing for validation of their offerings.

The Personal Experience Premium in Decision-Making

For the first time in the survey’s history, “prior experience” emerged as both the most frequently consulted and most influential resource in the buying process:

• 52% of buyers consulted their own prior experience (ranking first among all sources)
• 74% rated prior experience as “influential” in their decision
• 82% of buyers had a top product in mind when creating shortlists
• 70% ultimately purchased their initially preferred solution

This self-reliance trend significantly compresses the window for vendors to influence decisions. According to the report, 79% of all buyers and 89% of enterprise buyers knew about the product they purchased before they started their research, suggesting companies must focus on shaping perceptions before active buying cycles commence.

The Social Validation Imperative

When buyers do seek external validation, they overwhelmingly turn to peers rather than formal sources:

• 77% of buyers read user reviews during their purchasing journey
• 54% speak directly with current users before purchasing
• Peer conversations and recommendations are highly influential in decision-making

This peer validation trend is particularly pronounced among younger buyers, with Gen Z showing 57% likelihood of seeking peer conversations versus 49% of Boomers. The research highlights a critical disconnect, however: vendors dramatically underestimate this behaviour, believing only 38% of prospects engage in peer conversations.

The Transparency Mandate

When asked what they would change about the buying process, buyers demonstrate clear priorities:

• 45% wish for transparent pricing (the top response)
• 33% desire easier ROI calculation methods
• 26% want facilitated connections with current users

For B2B vendors, this signals the need to incorporate more transparency into their marketing and sales processes. Price disclosure, TCO modelling, and ROI frameworks have moved from nice-to-have supplements to essential components of effective buyer engagement.

Implications for B2B Sales and Marketing Strategy

These findings collectively reveal why traditional marketing and sales approaches are losing effectiveness. Buyers increasingly:

• Trust their own experiences above formal sources
• Seek verification through peer networks rather than vendor claims
• Value transparency over persuasive messaging
• Make decisions within defined timeframes, with the average deal cycle reported at 3.8 months

For B2B technology companies, this requires a fundamental pivot toward approaches that acknowledge and accommodate these behaviours. The data suggests successful engagement will increasingly serve as a bridge connecting buyer experience with peer validation, rather than attempting to function as a primary information source.

Strategic Adaptation: Building Trusted Brand Presence in the AI Era

The TrustRadius research offers clear direction on how B2B technology vendors must evolve to maintain relevance and influence in an AI-transformed landscape. The data reveals specific approaches that high-performing organisations are implementing to bridge the trust gap.

Multi-Channel Content Distribution Strategy

The highest-performing vendors (self-graded A- or above) reveal distinct approaches to content distribution:

• 77% leverage review platforms (versus 68% of all vendors)
• Their approach focuses on both brand awareness (29%) and demand generation (22%)
• They use fewer tactics overall but execute them more consistently

This strategic focus acknowledges that buyers encounter information across multiple touchpoints. Rather than pursuing maximum coverage, successful B2B vendors are prioritising channels where verification behaviour naturally occurs.

The practical implication for B2B vendors is clear: distribution strategy must shift from maximum reach to strategic positioning at verification points, particularly third-party platforms like industry review sites.

Building Trust Through Strategic Transparency

The research identifies transparency as the foremost buyer demand, yet many organisations struggle to implement it effectively:

• 45% of buyers cite lack of transparent pricing as their top frustration
• Enterprise buyers purchasing solutions at higher price points report significant concerns about ROI calculation
• Younger buyers show distinct preferences for transparent information

Forward-thinking organisations are responding by incorporating transparency into their customer engagement. Rather than simply providing marketing content, they’re equipping potential buyers with the tools to address transparency demands proactively:

For B2B vendors, this means ensuring that marketing and sales materials include components specifically designed to address transparency concerns, particularly around pricing, ROI models, and implementation requirements.

Enabling Peer-to-Peer Validation

The research highlights the critical role of peer conversations in buying decisions, with 54% of buyers speaking directly with current users. Successful organisations are facilitating rather than fighting this trend:

• They develop customer advocacy programmes that make users discoverable
• They encourage customers to list their products as skills on LinkedIn
• They focus on authentic user-generated content rather than testimonials

This approach recognises that most peer conversations happen outside vendor control:

• 51% of buyers speak with former colleagues or known peers
• 35% consult coworkers
• Only 23% use vendor-supplied references

For B2B technology vendors, this suggests an increased focus on customer experience strategies, ensuring that actual user experiences align with marketing positioning.

AI-Ready Content Creation

High-performing organisations are restructuring their content to serve both AI systems and human verification behaviours:

• They prioritise original, proprietary research over derivative content
• They balance gated and ungated materials to maintain AI visibility
• They optimise content for specific buying stages rather than broad keyword coverage

“To engage early-stage buyers and build brand in the age of AI, we need to focus on things AI cannot summarise, namely experiences, relationships, and original content.”  – John Miller, Founder and CEO, Stealth AI Martech Startup

This adaptation acknowledges that AI systems will increasingly mediate content discovery, making traditional SEO approaches less effective whilst elevating the importance of being cited as an authoritative source.

Future-Proofing B2B Marketing Strategy

The research points to several emerging trends that B2B technology vendors should incorporate into future marketing frameworks:

• Long-form, authoritative content will gain advantage as AI generates more summary-level content
• Buyer enablement rather than persuasion will become the primary function of marketing
• Original, proprietary insights will increase in value as AI commoditises general market knowledge
• Customer advocacy management will become a critical marketing function
• Demographic segmentation will gain importance as generational differences in research behaviour increase

For B2B technology companies, these trends highlight the need to restructure marketing functions around trust-building rather than simply information provision – a fundamental shift in how vendors engage with potential customers.

Key Statistics and Insights

• 72% of buyers encounter Google’s AI Overviews during their research process, representing a fundamental shift in how B2B information is discovered and initially assessed.
• 90% of buyers click through to source materials cited in AI Overviews, indicating that whilst AI mediates initial discovery, verification through original sources remains essential to the validation process.
• 80% of buyers now trust AI-generated content at least sometimes, a 19% year-over-year increase that signals growing acceptance of AI-mediated information gathering.
• Only 14% of buyers consult analyst reports during purchase decisions, reflecting a staggering 60% decline since 2022 and challenging traditional B2B marketing approaches.
• 77% of buyers read user reviews during their purchasing journey, making this form of social proof significantly more influential than traditional analyst reports.
• 54% of buyers speak directly with product users before purchasing, with only 23% of these conversations involving vendor-supplied references, highlighting the importance of organic advocacy.
• Prior experience ranked as both the most consulted (52%) and most influential (74%) resource in buying decisions, indicating the critical importance of product experience across the customer lifecycle.
• The average B2B buying cycle is 3.8 months, requiring vendors to influence decisions earlier in the process.
• 45% of buyers cite lack of transparent pricing as their top frustration, indicating a significant opportunity for vendors to build trust through transparency.
• 82% of buyers have a top product in mind when creating their shortlist, with 70% ultimately purchasing that product, emphasising the need to shape perceptions before active buying begins.
• According to the report, ungated content outperforms gated content by 26%, suggesting that content accessibility drives greater influence than lead capture.
• Vendor success metrics reveal 68% invest in review sites, with high-performing vendors (A-rated) showing 77% adoption of this strategy, indicating a correlation between distribution across verification channels and market performance.

Technical Glossary

AI Overviews: AI-generated summaries of relevant content from multiple sources that appear in Google search results, designed to answer searchers’ questions immediately without requiring clicks to source websites. According to the TrustRadius report, 72% of B2B buyers now encounter these during their research process.

Trust Gap: The growing disconnect between how buyers seek information (transparent, verifiable, peer-validated) and how vendors traditionally deliver it (controlled, persuasive, brand-centric). This gap necessitates new approaches to B2B marketing and sales.

Social Proof: Evidence from peers, user reviews, and direct conversations that validates product claims and builds buyer confidence in purchase decisions. The research shows this is significantly more influential than traditional analyst reports in B2B decision-making.

Zero-Click Searches: Search queries where users find answers directly in search results (like AI Overviews) without clicking through to source websites. These searches are disrupting traditional SEO-based content visibility.

Brand-Led Growth: Strategy focusing on building brand awareness and preference before direct sales engagement. In the AI era, this increasingly involves positioning as an authoritative source for citation in AI-generated content.

Buyer Enablement: The practice of providing resources buyers want to consult rather than traditional marketing materials, empowering self-guided research. The TrustRadius report indicates high-performing vendors prioritise this approach over persuasive messaging.

Intent Data: Behavioural signals that indicate a prospect’s readiness to purchase, increasingly important as traditional traffic metrics become less reliable due to AI-mediated search behaviours.

Verification Behaviour: The process through which buyers validate information received through AI or vendor sources, typically through source checking (90% for AI Overviews) or peer consultation (54% before purchase).

Backchannel Research: Buyer investigation occurring outside vendor-controlled channels, particularly through personal networks (51%), colleague consultation (35%), and online forums (14%). According to the report, most vendors significantly underestimate this activity.

ROI Framework: Structured methodology for calculating potential return on investment from technology purchases. The research shows 33% of buyers wish calculating ROI was easier, highlighting the importance of clear ROI tools in the buying process.

Key Questions & Answers

How is AI changing the competitive intelligence landscape?

AI is fundamentally altering intelligence discovery and validation in two key ways: (1) AI-mediated search (particularly Google’s AI Overviews, encountered by 72% of buyers) now handles initial information filtering, reducing traffic but increasing engagement quality, and (2) 40% of buyers report AI makes finding information easier whilst simultaneously increasing verification behaviour, with 90% clicking through to check sources. This creates a dual imperative for market intelligence professionals: optimising for AI discovery whilst strengthening source credibility.

What sources do market intelligence professionals currently trust most?

The research reveals a clear hierarchy of trusted sources, with personally-verified information dominating: prior experience (74%), free trials/demos (73%/69%), user reviews (56%), and peer conversations (51%) far outweigh traditional intelligence channels like analyst reports, which have collapsed to just 14% usage (down 60% since 2022). This signals that effective market intelligence must incorporate more experiential and social validation components rather than relying on formal authority sources.

How should market intelligence platforms adapt their visibility strategy?

With AI-mediated search disrupting traditional SEO, successful visibility requires a three-pronged approach: (1) Optimise for citation in AI Overviews by creating authoritative, verification-worthy content, (2) Distribute intelligence across multiple channels where verification occurs (especially review platforms, used by 77% of high-performing vendors), and (3) Focus on quality engagement metrics rather than raw traffic, as the research shows converted traffic quality is increasing even as volume decreases.

What’s driving the “trust gap” in market intelligence?

The trust gap stems from fundamental disconnects between buyer and vendor priorities: 45% of buyers want transparent pricing (vs. 76% of vendors using pricing-free demos), 26% want user connections (vs. just 23% getting vendor references), and 33% want easier ROI calculations (particularly among enterprise buyers at 48%). Vendors significantly underestimate peer conversation frequency (38% estimate vs. 54% actual), revealing why traditional intelligence channels are losing influence.

How does generational segmentation affect market intelligence strategy?

Gen Z buyers (9% of current market) show distinctly different intelligence consumption patterns: 15% use AI extensively (2× average), 30% highly trust AI content (vs. 20% average), 57% seek peer conversations (vs. 49% Boomers), and prefer forums like Reddit (significantly higher usage). As this cohort grows in influence, market intelligence strategy must adapt to these preferences, particularly by increasing social validation opportunities and AI-friendly formats.

What practical steps can improve market intelligence effectiveness?

The research identifies four key tactics from high-performing organisations: (1) Increase transparency, particularly around pricing and ROI modelling, (2) Enable peer connections beyond formal references (51% talk to known peers), (3) Create verification-friendly intelligence with robust sourcing and evidence, and (4) Distribute insights across multiple channels rather than centralising on owned properties. These actions directly address the verification behaviours that now dominate the intelligence consumption process.

How is buying cycle compression affecting market intelligence impact?

With 86% of deals closing within six months (average cycle just 3.8 months) and 82% of buyers having a preferred solution before creating shortlists, the window for intelligence influence is narrowing. Strategic implications include: earlier-stage intelligence distribution, focusing on brand building before purchase intent signals, and ensuring intelligence continuity across the customer lifecycle since prior experience now ranks as the #1 influence factor.