65% of B2B buyers now use AI tools to research vendors before they ever reach a company's website. The average B2B brand scores 18-22 out of 100 on TPG's AXO diagnostic — meaning most brands are nearly invisible when buyers ask AI engines about their category. TPG has built the methodology to change that.
| 65% of B2B buyers use AI tools in their research process as of 2026 | 18-22 average AXO baseline score for B2B brands before AEO work | 58+ average AXO score for TPG clients after a 6-month AEO engagement | 4 AI engines scored in every TPG AXO diagnostic: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews |
Buyers are asking ChatGPT "what are the best [category] platforms for B2B SaaS?" before they run a Google search. If AI engines are not citing your brand in those answers, you are not in the consideration set before the buyer journey even starts. SEO rankings do not fix this problem.
Content structured for keyword ranking does not get cited by AI engines. AI engines prefer direct answers, FAQ structure, structured schema markup, and content that demonstrates topical authority across an entire subject area. Most B2B content libraries are optimized for the wrong retrieval system.
Most B2B marketing teams cannot tell you whether ChatGPT or Perplexity mentions their brand when buyers ask category questions. Without a monitoring process, you cannot measure the problem and you cannot track improvement.
AEO is a first-mover advantage. The brands building topical authority and structured content now will be harder to displace from AI citations in 12-24 months. The window to capture this advantage without fighting established AI brand presence is open now, not in two years.
TPG runs your brand through our proprietary AXO scoring methodology across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. We test 30-50 category questions your buyers are likely asking, score citation frequency, citation sentiment, and citation depth for your brand and your top 3 competitors. You receive a scored report (0-100) with benchmark data and a gap analysis against category leaders.
Based on AXO diagnostic findings, we redesign your content architecture for AI retrieval. This includes FAQ page structure and FAQPage JSON-LD schema implementation, topic hub pages that demonstrate topical authority, comparison guide frameworks ("X vs. Y" content that AI engines frequently cite), definition content ("What is [term]?") for category concepts you want to own, and structured content templates your team can use for all future content production.
We produce the content your brand needs to achieve citation. This runs concurrently with architecture work. We write FAQ collections, comparison guides, and definition pages that are built specifically for AI retrieval. Every piece includes appropriate schema markup, structured answer blocks, and citation-worthy specificity (data, research references, expert position statements). We also audit your existing content library and identify the 20-30% of existing pages that are closest to AI-citation-ready and upgrade them first.
"We ran our AXO diagnostic and scored a 14. Six months later we scored a 61. ChatGPT now names us in the top three answers for our core category question. That is buyers finding us we never would have seen in Google Analytics." — VP of Marketing, B2B SaaS Platform, 400 employees
What is the AXO diagnostic and how is the score calculated? AXO (AI Experience Optimization) is TPG's proprietary diagnostic that scores your brand's visibility across four AI engines on a 0-100 scale. We run 30-50 category questions that match buyer intent, score whether your brand is cited, how prominently, and with what sentiment. The score weights citation frequency, citation depth (named vs. described vs. recommended), and consistency across engines. Most B2B brands score 18-22 before AEO work. TPG clients average 58+ after six months.
How long does AEO take to show results? The AXO diagnostic delivers in 2 weeks. Content architecture changes show first citation improvements in 6-10 weeks as AI engines index and incorporate new structured content. Full citation authority builds over 4-6 months. This is similar to SEO timelines but the compounding effect is faster because AI engines update their knowledge synthesis more frequently than Google updates rankings for established pages.
Is AEO replacing SEO or adding to it? AEO and SEO work together. Content that earns AI citation tends to also rank well in traditional search because it demonstrates topical depth and authority. The difference is format and structure: AEO content leads with direct answers and uses schema markup that AI engines specifically look for. The investment in AEO-structured content improves traditional SEO performance at the same time.
Can we do AEO without changing our existing content? Rarely. Most existing B2B content is structured for keyword ranking, not AI retrieval. The fastest path to citation improvement is usually upgrading the 20-30% of your existing content that is closest to AI-citation-ready, while producing net-new FAQ and definition content that fills category gaps. We audit your existing library in Phase 01 and tell you exactly how much new content you need.
How do we monitor AI visibility on an ongoing basis? We build a manual monitoring process as part of the engagement: a set of 30-50 branded and category queries you run across the four AI engines monthly, a scoring sheet to track citation frequency, and a reporting cadence. We also set up brand mention monitoring tools that can catch when your brand appears in publicly accessible AI-generated content. We document this process so your team can maintain it after the engagement ends.
The Pedowitz Group | pedowitzgroup.com | Revenue Marketing Experts Since 2007