BrandGEO Market Research — Blog — BrandGEO A Markdown version of this page is available at https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/market-research.md, optimized for AI and LLM tools. Market Research =============== 7 articles in Market Research Interpreting the research and data shaping AI visibility — McKinsey, HBR, Gartner, Forrester, Ahrefs, and the category landscape. [ ![BrandGEO](/brandgeo-transparent-on-black-926x268.png) ](https://brandgeo.co/blog/mckinsey-44-16-numbers-2026-marketing-plan) [Brand Strategy](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/brand-strategy) [Market Research](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/market-research) Apr 21, 2026 [What McKinsey's 44% / 16% Numbers Really Mean for Your 2026 Marketing Plan](https://brandgeo.co/blog/mckinsey-44-16-numbers-2026-marketing-plan) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two numbers from McKinsey's August 2025 report have travelled further than any other statistic in the AI visibility conversation: 44% of US consumers use AI search as their primary source for purchase decisions, and only 16% of brands systematically measure their AI visibility. Those numbers appear on investor decks, in pitch emails, and at the top of almost every GEO article written since. Most of the time, they are cited without context. This post unpacks what the data actually measured, what it did not, and how a marketing team should translate the headline into a plan. [\#For CMOs](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/for-cmos) [\#AI Visibility](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/ai-visibility) [\#Framework](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/framework) [ ![BrandGEO](/brandgeo-transparent-on-black-926x268.png) ](https://brandgeo.co/blog/gartner-25-percent-search-drop-what-to-model) [Brand Strategy](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/brand-strategy) [Market Research](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/market-research) Apr 14, 2026 [Gartner's 25% Search-Volume Drop by End of 2026: What to Model For](https://brandgeo.co/blog/gartner-25-percent-search-drop-what-to-model) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In February 2024, Gartner forecast a 25% drop in traditional search engine volume by the end of 2026, driven by AI chatbots and other virtual agents. Two years later, the forecast is still being cited at board meetings — usually as a scare quote, sometimes as a justification for buying an AI visibility tool, rarely as the input to an actual model. That last use case is the most interesting. A 25% channel contraction is a planning constraint; if you do not convert the headline into a spreadsheet, the number bounces off the strategy without landing. [\#For CMOs](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/for-cmos) [\#Framework](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/framework) [\#Gartner](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/gartner) [ ![BrandGEO](/brandgeo-transparent-on-black-926x268.png) ](https://brandgeo.co/blog/forrester-b2b-ai-search-3x-faster-than-consumers) [Brand Strategy](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/brand-strategy) [Market Research](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/market-research) Apr 7, 2026 [Forrester on B2B: Why Buyers Adopt AI Search 3× Faster Than Consumers](https://brandgeo.co/blog/forrester-b2b-ai-search-3x-faster-than-consumers) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- B2B is supposed to be the laggard. For two decades, consumer behaviour has set the adoption pace on every major channel — search, social, mobile, video — and B2B has followed 12 to 24 months later, after the early returns were clear and procurement teams caught up. Forrester's 2025 research on AI search upended that pattern. According to their work, B2B buyers are adopting AI search roughly three times faster than consumers, with 90% of organizations already using generative AI somewhere in the buying process. The pattern flip matters, and it changes how B2B marketing teams should be planning for 2026 and 2027. [\#For CMOs](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/for-cmos) [\#B2B SaaS](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/b2b-saas) [\#Forrester](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/forrester) [ ![BrandGEO](/brandgeo-transparent-on-black-926x268.png) ](https://brandgeo.co/blog/ai-search-landscape-2026-who-uses-what) [Market Research](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/market-research) Mar 31, 2026 [The AI Search Landscape in 2026: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude — Who Uses What](https://brandgeo.co/blog/ai-search-landscape-2026-who-uses-what) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the most common questions a marketing team asks on their first AI visibility audit is: which provider actually matters? The honest answer is all of them, with different weights depending on your audience. Provider usage is not evenly distributed. ChatGPT dominates consumer volume; Claude leads among enterprise and technical buyers; Gemini owns Google's search integration; Grok and DeepSeek occupy narrower but loyal niches. Treating all five as interchangeable — or picking one and ignoring the others — costs you the ability to prioritize the work that matters most for your specific audience. [\#Data Analysis](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/data-analysis) [\#ChatGPT](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/chatgpt) [\#Claude](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/claude) [ ![BrandGEO](/brandgeo-transparent-on-black-926x268.png) ](https://brandgeo.co/blog/openai-dashboard-good-news-for-geo-buyers) [AI Visibility](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/ai-visibility) [Market Research](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/market-research) Mar 26, 2026 ["OpenAI Will Launch Their Own Dashboard Soon" — Why That's Good News for GEO Buyers](https://brandgeo.co/blog/openai-dashboard-good-news-for-geo-buyers) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Every GEO buying conversation in 2026 eventually reaches this objection: OpenAI will probably launch their own brand analytics dashboard, so why invest in a third-party tool now? The short answer is that OpenAI almost certainly will, and that the launch makes cross-provider tooling more valuable rather than less. The long answer requires walking through why the category fragmented in the first place, what a native OpenAI dashboard would and would not cover, and what the parallel histories of Google Search Console and Meta Ads Manager tell us about how these dynamics play out. The conclusion: native dashboards consolidate the pain of one engine; aggregators consolidate the pain across engines. Both exist. Both are needed. [\#For CMOs](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/for-cmos) [\#Myth-Busting](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/myth-busting) [\#ChatGPT](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/chatgpt) [ ![BrandGEO](/brandgeo-transparent-on-black-926x268.png) ](https://brandgeo.co/blog/google-ai-overviews-ctr-curves-published-data) [SEO](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/seo) [Market Research](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/market-research) Mar 24, 2026 [How Google's AI Overviews Changed CTR Curves — What Published Data Tells Us](https://brandgeo.co/blog/google-ai-overviews-ctr-curves-published-data) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For twenty years, the SEO click-through-rate curve was stable enough to plan against. Position one got roughly 28% of clicks. Position two got 14%. Positions three through ten declined in a predictable pattern. Content and SEO teams built campaign models on top of that curve and, broadly, the curve held. Then Google launched AI Overviews, and the curve changed shape. The published research from Ahrefs, Similarweb, and several independent SEO teams lets us look at the new curve with reasonable confidence. The new curve is not a small deviation from the old one. It is a different curve. [\#For SEO Managers](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/for-seo-managers) [\#AI Overviews](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/ai-overviews) [\#CTR Decline](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/ctr-decline) [ ![BrandGEO](/brandgeo-transparent-on-black-926x268.png) ](https://brandgeo.co/blog/state-of-geo-category-funding-tooling-future) [Market Research](https://brandgeo.co/blog/category/market-research) Mar 17, 2026 [The State of the GEO Category: Funding, Tooling, and Where It's Heading](https://brandgeo.co/blog/state-of-geo-category-funding-tooling-future) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In March 2024, the phrase Generative Engine Optimization was a whitepaper term used by a handful of researchers. By April 2026, it is a category name with a Wikipedia entry, dedicated tracks at BrightonSEO and SMX, more than twenty pure-play tools, over $500 million in disclosed venture capital, and at least one company valued at $1 billion. Eighteen months. Most MarTech categories take five to seven years to reach comparable maturity. This post maps the state of the category — what is funded, what is tooled, where it is heading — without naming specific competitors, because the naming is not the point. The shape is the point. [\#For Founders](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/for-founders) [\#For CMOs](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/for-cmos) [\#GEO](https://brandgeo.co/blog/tag/geo)