The Current | May 1–15, 2026: Your Buyers Are Asking AI Who to Call
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This issue: AI search is changing how buyers find vendors. Here's what you need to know.
The Current | May 1–15, 2026 — Kwedar & Co.
The lead
Your buyers are asking AI who to call. Is your name coming up?
Think about the last time you asked your AI chatbot for a restaurant recommendation. You probably didn’t type “restaurant Fort Worth.” You said something like:
“I’m celebrating my birthday this weekend with a family dinner. My parents, husband, and young kids will all be there. I want somewhere celebratory that can handle a variety of palates. What would you recommend in Fort Worth?”
Your B2B buyers are doing the same thing. Instead of Googling “cardboard manufacturer North Texas,” a procurement manager is typing:
“We’re a mid-size e-commerce company in Dallas scaling rapidly and outgrowing our current packaging supplier. We need a reliable manufacturer in North Texas who can handle custom sizing, fast turnaround, and won’t disappear when volume spikes. Who should we talk to?”
AI search doesn't return a list of links. It returns a recommendation. A name. Sometimes two or three. And if your company isn't one of them, you don't exist in that moment.
Here's what determines who surfaces: not the company with the best website, and not the one spending the most on ads. Industry research is consistent on this point: AI systems synthesize information from media coverage, third-party directories, reviews, and external sources to form their understanding of who a company is and whether to recommend them. Owned content — your website, your blog — carries less weight than earned, third-party validation.
In other words: PR isn't just reputation management anymore. It's how you get found.
What we're seeing
The companies winning right now in SEO, in AI search, in lead generation share one thing in common: consistency.
Not consistency as in “posting three times a week.” Consistency as in: the same clear narrative, showing up across every channel, saying the same thing in the same voice. Earned media. Social. Website. Blog. All pulling in the same direction.
If your traffic dropped in 2025, even if you were producing content, this is worth examining. Volume without coherence doesn’t compound. It just accumulates. AI search is particularly unforgiving here: if your LinkedIn positions you one way, your website says something else, and your blog covers topics that don’t connect to either, the algorithm doesn’t give you credit for the effort. It registers the inconsistency. And it moves on.
The companies that are invisible in AI search right now aren’t necessarily the ones who did nothing. Some of them worked hard. They just hadn’t landed on a single, clear point of view before they started broadcasting.
That’s the sequence that matters: nail the narrative, say something worth repeating, then turn up the volume.
The cautionary tale
We worked with a company that was, by every measure, trying hard. They were active on social, had a decent website, and were producing content regularly. But ask them what they did and who they served best, and the answer changed depending on who you asked and where you looked.
As the world got louder — AI proliferating, markets rattled, inboxes more crowded than ever — they didn’t rise above the noise. Instead, they just… disappeared.
When your message is inconsistent across channels, AI search has no coherent story to tell about you. It can’t recommend what it can’t categorize. So it doesn’t.
What turned things around wasn’t a bigger ad budget or a content sprint. It was the hard, unglamorous work of claiming a niche, building a narrative around it, and then ditch-digging online and off until that story was consistent everywhere it needed to be, from earned media, to social content, to website, etc. Every touchpoint saying the same thing.
It’s not fast work. But done right, it becomes a virtuous cycle. Visibility builds credibility. Credibility builds trust. Trust builds pipeline.
One thing worth your time
Open a private browser window and go to Perplexity.ai. Type:
“Who are the best [your service] companies in [your market]?”
Don't use your account if you have one. Don't provide any context. Just ask the question.
If your name doesn’t come up, you have your next project.
About The Author
Lauren Kwedar Cockerell is founder and president of Kwedar & Co, a Fort Worth-based PR, messaging, and strategic communications firm serving purpose-driven B2B companies. She is also the firm’s lead PR and marketing strategist, host of our podcast The Impatient Entrepreneur, as well as a frequent podcast guest.
Over the past 20+ years, she has worked with 100s of leaders and organizations to create PR and marketing strategies and tactics that support visions and reach goals.
To connect with Lauren, please send an email above, or book a consultation.