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That doesn't happen often at industry events. But I’m glad it did.

The theme of the summit was hard to ignore: AI is reshaping how information gets found, how decisions get made, and how brands build visibility — faster than most of us have adjusted for.

They backed it up with data.

The stat that hit me first was from G2: 69% of buyers chose a different vendor than they originally planned — after using AI search in their research process.

Nearly 7 in 10 buyers changed their mind because of what an LLM surfaced. Before a single sales call. Before a case study. Before a demo.

My mental model going in: AI search is basically new SEO. The search box moved from Google to ChatGPT, but the behavior was the same. People search, people find, people decide.

What that stat broke open: it's not the same. LLMs aren't just a new search bar. People trust them like an advisor. They're letting them influence purchasing decisions in a way that Google search rarely did.

That's a different game.

The second stat is the one that changed how I see my own work.

LinkedIn is the #2 most cited source for major LLMs — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini. This came directly from a session Meltwater ran with their Chief Product Officer and LinkedIn, focused on what actually drives LinkedIn content into LLM citations.

I've spent my entire career in LinkedIn organic. I thought of it as its own channel — build audience, create demand, generate pipeline.

What I didn't see: LinkedIn organic is your earned media strategy now. The content you publish, the authority you build, the conversations you generate — LLMs are indexing all of it. When someone asks an AI a question your content answers, you're either in that answer or you're not.

Most teams have no idea which one it is. That's the gap. And it's why Meltwater's AI visibility tool is the fastest-selling product in the company's history — because marketers feel that gap and are scrambling.

I’m seeing this play out right now. A few weeks before the summit, a CEO told me LinkedIn views are vanity metrics. He was shifting 30% of his marketing budget to AIO to improve AI keyword visibility. I asked how he'd track success. He said: how often they show up for keywords.

So… views. Just with a different name — but LinkedIn tells you who's watching.

You don't get cited in AI without a body of work somewhere. LinkedIn is where most of us build that body of work.

The third stat adds urgency. (As if we needed any more.)

YouTube is the #1 cited source for LLMs — and 78% of users say it has the most trusted creators for product recommendations. B2B is almost completely ignoring it. That's not just an audience gap. It's a visibility gap most teams haven't even clocked yet.

The throughline: visibility and organic content aren't vanity metrics. They're the inputs that determine your AI presence. And too many B2B teams are still arguing about vanity metrics while buyers are making decisions without them.

I left New York more convinced than ever that LinkedIn organic and AI visibility aren't two strategies. They're one. And the window to act first is still open — but not forever.

Hit reply — which of these three stats hit you hardest?

Pen by Devin Reed​
​Founder, The Reeder​

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