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AI Has Changed the Way B2B Buyers Buy. Just Not the Way You Think · Uphoff on Media Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Early in my career,
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work at Ziff Davis
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: and learn directly from the legendary Bill Ziff.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: For many of us who worked at Ziff back when Bill owned and ran the company,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: it was the equivalent of getting an MBA in the media business.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of Bill's core maxims was focus on the reader's needs and the advertisers will follow.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Over the years, I've lost count of how many times I've used this as a guide.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would argue that in today's B2B media and information industry,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: understanding the audience is more important than it's ever been.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's why I was excited when Rob Keenan,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: SVP and lead analyst at Outsell, reached out to share their new B2B buyer study.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: There are a ton of actionable insights in this study for B2B media
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: and information leaders as well as for B2B buyers.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank Rob and Outsell founder and CEO Anthea Strategos for sharing
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: the research and encouraging me to share my take,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: which I'll do in this episode and in the post on Uphoff on Media Substack
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: that is live this morning.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get to work.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is titled, AI has changed the way B2B buyers buy, just not the way you think.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: What outsells new study of 226 B2B buyers confirmed and the blind spot it exposed.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I've argued in recent posts came from the operator's chair reading
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: the market from the supply side.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: That B2B media's future belongs to companies that go deep instead of broad and
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: that events are the one format agentic AI can't disintermediate.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Last week,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I got the buyer side of the story and it didn't come from a hunch or
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: a hallway conversation at a conference.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It came from Outsell and their new B2B buyer study based on a survey
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: of 226 B2B buyers who control real spend.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I read it looking for reasons to push back on my own arguments.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: There weren't many to find.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: The buyers confirmed with hard numbers two concepts I've been thinking and writing
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: about from the outside looking in.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: But there was something neither of my previous posts covered
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: because I didn't have this data yet.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: A problem sitting inside that confirmation that ought to worry anyone running
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: a company that buys, not just the ones trying to sell to it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where this data came from,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've been an Outsell customer twice,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: as CEO of UBM TechWeb and again at thomasnet.com,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: the company I recently cited as one of the clearest examples of
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: the vertical intelligence model in practice.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I paid for Outsell's research in both jobs because it was buyer-centered work built
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: for operators.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: This time is different.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Outsell sent me this study unsolicited and at no cost,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: the way they'd pitch any editor encouraging me to share my own take.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: This study was done in partnership with independent researcher Rebecca Kitchens,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: a 23-year TechTarget veteran who ran the business through its combination
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: with Informa.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's Outsell doing what Outsell does.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: The research and advisory firm for B2B information,
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: data and media companies delivering work built for the people running
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: the businesses.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's also rare.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen another study that goes directly to B2B buyers
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: and asks what's actually happening in their heads when AI enters
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: the purchase process instead of inferring it from traffic data.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: If it exists, I haven't found it and I've been looking.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: The industry needs more of this kind of data and analysis.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: The depth argument confirmed by the people it's supposed to serve.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: In the vertical intelligence company,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I argued that the businesses winning the machine age are going to go deeper into
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: a specific professional domain instead of broader across many and that
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: the buyers were rewarding depth with trust they wouldn't extend to a generalist.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Outsell's data says exactly that from the buyer's side of the transaction.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: This one surprised me at first, third-party reliance rising.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: At the same moment, AI adoption did, felt backward.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Reliance on third-party sources is rising, not falling, since buyers started using AI.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Peer review sites and peer communities are both up roughly 49%.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Analyst reports are up 46%.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Trade publications are up 42%.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: The only category moving the other direction is vendor-produced content,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: down across the board and down hardest among
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: the end-user buyers who'd normally be closest to a sales conversation.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: When AI can synthesize a vendor's own positioning in seconds,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: going straight to the most biased source in the room stops making sense.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Rising reliance is the headline.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the finding that matters most.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: The finding that matters most is where in the funnel that reliance now sits,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: and it's the one I'd want every media and event operator to think about.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Buyers aren't coming to third-party sources to get oriented anymore.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: AI does that job now.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're coming later after AI has already narrowed the field
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: to check what they were told and to find what AI left out.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Same sources, more reliant A decline at the top of the funnel isn't your audience leaving.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's AI absorbing the orientation work your homepage,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: your explainers, and your top of funnel content used to do.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: The audience that's left has moved downstream later in the process,
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: harder to catch with reach-driven tactics and paying closer attention
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: when they do show up because they're there to verify a short list, not to browse.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And zero respondents out of 226 say they use AI exclusively in vendor selection, not one.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: AI didn't replace the research ecosystem, it became the front door to it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Buyers are walking through that door faster than heading straight for
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: the same trusted rooms they've always used,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: just being pickier about which ones once they get there and arriving later in
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: the conversation than they used to.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: The events argument confirmed with a number I didn't expect.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: In the B2B event market is splitting in two posts,
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I argued that events are the one revenue line agentic AI can't touch
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: because it can synthesize a panel, but it simply can't replicate a room.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I expected the buyer data to support that argument.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't expect it to be the strongest number in the entire study.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Events have the single largest increase in reliance
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: of any source category outsell measured,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: 53% ahead of peer communities, analyst reports, and trade publications.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Buyers aren't pulling back from live gatherings because AI gave them a shortcut.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're leaning on them harder at
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: the exact moment general digital reach is getting harder to buy.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Read those two findings together and the picture sharpens.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Buyers aren't distributing their trust more widely because AI gave them more places to look.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're concentrating it on fewer sources chosen more deliberately than they did
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: before AI existed.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Depth and presence are what's earning that concentration.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is losing ground to it.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: The verification tax.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the insight I didn't anticipate because it's not a story about media at all.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story about who's making B2B purchase decisions with the least ability
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: to catch AI when it's wrong and how much authority they're being handed to act
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: without checking.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Outsell asked buyers how they use AI relative to how well they already know
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: the category they're researching.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: 45% describe themselves as relatively new to the category using AI to get oriented.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: 39% have general familiarity and use it to narrow options.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Only 12% know the landscape well enough to use AI to move faster
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: on specifics they already understand.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Trust runs backward from what you'd expect.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Buyers new to the category,
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: 93% rate their trust in AI high or very high, 55% at the maximum level.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Asked if they trust it outright with no further checking, 56% said yes.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Buyers who know the category well,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: 71% high or very high,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: just 25% at the maximum level,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: less than half the newcomer rate, only 14% would trust AI outright with no checking.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Outsell has a name for the workaround buyers are building for themselves, the verification tax.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: 99% of respondents said they run some kind of validation process before acting
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: on what AI gives them.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: 39% say they're validating more than they did before AI entered the picture.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: The buyers who know the least about what they're buying are the ones least likely
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: to be paying that tax at exactly the moment they should be paying it the most.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: The people least equipped to check AI are gaining the most authority to act on it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Break the newcomer numbers down by role and the risk gets sharper.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: New to the category they're buying in,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: 55% of procurement respondents versus 32% of end-user buyers.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Trust AI outright,
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: no further investigation among newcomers,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: 67% of procurement respondents versus 31% of end-user buyers.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Say AI has led to meaningfully better decisions, 71% of procurement newcomers.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: That gap isn't a knock on procurement.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Their job is to govern the process,
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: control costs, and manage risk across categories they rotate through.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the people with the least domain depth are the ones extending AI the most,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: unconditional trust.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And they're often the ones with signing authority.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now put that next to where buying agents are headed.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Already using an AI buying agent to identify,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: prioritize, and compare vendors or to research the market outright?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: 49% of all respondents.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Plan to adopt one within the next 12 months?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Among the 51%.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not yet using one?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: 85%.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Delegating short listing decisions to an agent now or within a year?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: 93% of B2B buyers combined.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: None of this means AI is giving buyers bad answers.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Buyers rate AI's usefulness at 4.3 or higher out of 5 at every stage of
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: the purchase process with no meaningful drop-off anywhere.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: The problem isn't the tool,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: it's that the people most likely to skip checking the tool's work are gaining
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: the most ground in how much of the decision they're handing it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: What this means,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: for CEOs and operators on the B2B buying side,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: your own procurement process probably has this exact blind spot.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever on your team is newest to a category is also statistically
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: the person most likely to trust AI's output without checking it,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: and they may well be the person with budget authority to act on it.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Build a verification step into any AI-assisted purchase above
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: a material dollar threshold,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: especially where a less tenured buyer is driving the research.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Treat it as a governance question, not a technology question.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: For B2B media event and marketing operators,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: read the reliance numbers and stop there, and you'll draw the wrong conclusion.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: The real finding isn't that buyers need you more.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's that they need you for something different than they used to.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Top of funnel education,
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: the job most editorial and content calendars are still built around is losing ground
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: to AI by design.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: The job that's growing is validation,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: content and programming that helps a buyer confirm a shortlist AI already built,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: not content that helps them discover the category in the first place.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: If your content strategy or event programming and your sales pitch
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: to sponsors are still oriented around top of funnel reach,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: you're building for a job buyers have already handed to a machine.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Visibility in AI tools is table stakes now, the way SEO was a decade ago.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: But 89% of buyers treat it as one factor among several, not the only one.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: GEO gets a vendor on the shortlist.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't win the deal.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: What wins the deal is the validation layer buyers are explicitly asking for.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Side-by-side comparisons,
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: independent reviews, implementation reality that no vendor will volunteer.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Build that further downstream than your instincts are trained to go and build it in
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: the vertical where you already have the deepest relationship.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Buyers are telling you directly they're narrowing their trusted source list,
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: not expanding it, and that the moment they need you has moved.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: For investors,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: two questions belong in every diligence checklist on a B2B media information
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: or marketing asset from here forward.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Has the company's go-to-market spend actually shifted
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: towards validation stage content and away from top of funnel chase,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: or is it still fighting yesterday's war?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And does the business have genuine defensible depth in a specific vertical,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: the kind Outsell calls the source of truth position,
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: or is it competing on reach in a market that's actively punishing reach?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: The businesses sitting on real depth are worth more than their current multiples suggest.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: The market hasn't caught up to that yet.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: AI didn't take judgment out of B2B buying process.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: It moved the moment judgment gets tested earlier and made it easier to skip entirely.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: The buyers skipping it are telling us in their own survey responses
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: that they know they're taking a risk.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: The operators who build for that moment,
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: not for the click that happens before it,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: are the ones who still be standing when this shakes out.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: My thanks to Outsell founder and CEO Anthea Strategos and Rob Keenan,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: SVP and lead analyst, for sharing the research.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's this episode.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you found this useful, please do one thing.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the Uphoff on Media podcast on Apple or Spotify, and please leave a rating.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the single best way to help another operator find this.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Tony Uphoff, back at it next week.