What we found

• Everyone in our study uses AI tools to research enterprise AI solutions, but they are careful about trusting the results. They stop short of making decisions based only on AI outputs and always look for independent verification.
• Traditional search and AI tools are co-equal starting points. Most respondents now start their research with either AI tools, traditional search, or both. They use AI for many tasks, such as discovery, mapping the landscape, comparing vendors, and preparing business cases.
• AI use is highest at the beginning of the buying journey, then drops significantly through the middle stages. Usage peaks during initial discovery (90%), drops during longlisting and shortlisting, then rises again for due diligence (47%) and business case building (50%) before falling again. This shows that respondents mainly use AI to get oriented and synthesize information, not to make decisions.
• Peer recommendations are still very important. Respondents often turn to peers as their primary source for verifying information and trust them more than AI, especially when making decisions later in the process.
• Showing up in AI results matters, but not universally. Half of the respondents said that seeing a vendor in AI results shapes their opinion. The other half were skeptical, pointing out that newer or niche solutions might not be picked up by AI yet.
• Procurement may be getting more complicated. For buyers in regulated industries or large enterprises, AI purchases may start to involve AI governance committees. This could extend the buying process and introduce new stakeholder audiences that enterprise AI vendors need to reach.

Our full report, The Influence of AI on the Enterprise AI Buyer’s Journey, dives deeper into these and more. It also comes with actionable tips enterprise AI vendors can act on to adapt accordingly.

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