AI Visibility for B2B: How to Grow Even as ChatGPT Referrals Shrink

by | Sep 25, 2025 | Marketing Strategy, SEO, Trends

Referral traffic from ChatGPT to websites fell 52% in just one month, according to new research from Profound’s Josh Blyskal, whose analysis of more than a billion citations and a million referral visits reveals a clear trend that branded websites are losing visibility while “answer-first” platforms like Reddit and Wikipedia are surging.

We covered the technical side of this shift in our recent post, The Search Revolution: How AI Optimization is Redefining Digital Discovery in 2025 and Beyond. That article explored how AI systems process, rank, and surface content. This piece focuses on the bigger story: why B2B marketers can no longer rely on the old lead-gated playbook, and how AI-driven discovery is changing the rules of visibility.

 

 

The Decline of the MQL Era 

For years, B2B marketing centered on lead-gated content. Whitepapers, webinars, and reports were designed to capture emails, feed automation workflows, and hand MQLs to sales. The system worked when discovery happened through Google search and when buyers were willing to trade contact info for insights.

That model is breaking down in the era of the AI internet. ChatGPT and other AI-driven platforms aren’t rewarding pages optimized for lead capture. They’re elevating content that provides direct, useful answers in real time. Blyskal’s study shows this shift clearly: Reddit citations jumped 87%, Wikipedia rose 62%, and together with TechRadar, these sites now account for nearly a quarter of all citations. The takeaway is blunt: AI systems don’t care about your form fills; they care about whether you answer the query.

 

 

The Bigger Picture for B2B Marketers

Analysis of the study’s data highlights two major implications for B2B marketers.

  • Conversion-first content is bypassed: Pages designed to push “Schedule a demo” are increasingly invisible in ChatGPT answers.
  • Answer-first platforms win by default: Wikipedia and Reddit are gaining share because they directly address user questions without friction.           

As Blyskal writes: “The citation opportunity is massive for brands willing to shift from conversion first to answer first content.”

 

 

What This Means for B2B Content Strategy

The AI era is forcing B2B marketers to rebuild how they think about content:

  • Move beyond MQL-chasing: Stop designing every asset as a gated lead magnet. Your most valuable content may never generate a form fill, but it can still generate demand by earning visibility inside AI-driven discovery.
  • Publish for answers, not downloads: Create content that resolves the questions buyers actually ask, in formats that AI can parse and surface.
  • Shift to mental availability: The goal is not to capture an email, but to make sure your brand is top-of-mind when AI tools deliver solutions.
  • It’s an ecosystem, not just your website: AI doesn’t just pull from your site, it cites across the web. Brands must show up in multiple ecosystems where queries get answered.

 

 

Key Takeaway

OpenAI’s citation experiments are already causing huge traffic swings, and this is only the beginning. The brands that win in this environment will abandon the MQL-first mentality and pivot to answer-first strategies. The value of content in the AI age isn’t in gated PDFs, it’s in being the best, most accessible answer to the questions your buyers are asking. Those who adapt will remain visible and trusted. Those who don’t will be squeezed out of the new discovery layer that is quickly becoming the front door to B2B buying.

Ready to dominate AI search for your industry? Direct Agents’ proprietary AI optimization framework has helped dozens of companies achieve dramatic increases in AI visibility and qualified lead generation. Contact [email protected] for a comprehensive AI search audit and discover exactly where your biggest opportunities lie.

Jackson Richards Vp of Strategy