Your pipeline is down, and also you’re about to repair the flawed drawback.
Most groups deal with a pipeline dip as a requirement drawback. They add campaigns, spend, and leads.
However in 2026, software program consumers spend essentially the most time within the analysis part. So, should you’re experiencing a pipeline dip, it’s typically a aggressive drawback fairly than a requirement shortage drawback. You’re dropping a deal as a result of your software program purchaser is selecting a competitor in an analysis you by no means see.
Patrons now run the “which software program is healthier” or “X vs. Y” comparisons by way of AI chatbots earlier than they ever attain your web site, and G2 sits on the heart of that reply. Throughout the roughly 1,900 head-to-head software program comparability prompts we monitor, G2 is the one most-cited supply in AI solutions, forward of the analysts and the distributors themselves (Supply: G2 inner information by way of Profound, July 2026).
In the event you do not but know whether or not you present up in AI solutions in any respect, learn the Demand Gen Playbook for Getting Present in AI Search first. This piece exhibits you who you are dropping to, the place, and attain the accounts evaluating you proper now.
TL;DR
- A pipeline dip is both a requirement drawback or a aggressive drawback, and the 2 want reverse fixes. Extra leads will not repair a aggressive one.
- Software program class exercise and evaluation velocity on G2 transfer weeks earlier than your pipeline does. Watch them as early warnings.
- Comparability information exhibits the precise matchups consumers run, and that very same information feeds the AI reply. Present up within the comparability, and also you present up within the advice.
- Purchaser intent turns aggressive positioning right into a goal record: the named accounts evaluating your opponents, in actual time, prepared for outreach.
How do you notice and sort out aggressive shifts earlier than they hit pipeline?
Step one is figuring out if in case you have a requirement shortage or a competitor menace. Diagnose this primary as a result of the 2 look equivalent and have reverse options. A requirement drawback means fewer consumers are in-market. A aggressive drawback means consumers are in-market however touchdown on another person’s shortlist. Spend on lead quantity to repair a aggressive leak, and also you pay extra to lose on the similar fee.
Watch main indicators, not lagging ones. Class exercise and evaluation velocity lead, and you’ll see them weeks earlier. Deal successful groups proactively determine and seize prospects earlier than a competitor claims the bottom.
Learn the indicators this manner:
|
What you see |
Doubtless analysis |
What to do |
|
Site visitors and impressions down throughout the board |
Demand drawback |
Rebuild top-of-funnel demand |
|
Site visitors regular, win charges slipping, offers dying after a comparability stage |
Aggressive drawback |
Repair positioning and proof, not quantity |
Two numbers present why this issues now. Patrons who used AI to supply suggestions purchased from their first shortlist in three of their final 5 purchases 80% of the time, versus 65% for consumers who did not use AI. And 31% of consumers open their AI analysis by naming opponents instantly.
The software program business aggressive shift, by the numbers
- 80% vs. 65% — how typically AI-guided consumers stick with their preliminary shortlist vs. everybody else
- 31% of software program consumers begin AI analysis with competitor-based prompts
- 33% of consumers begin with category-comparison queries (“finest CRM for enterprise”)
Sources: G2 2026 Purchaser Habits Report (1,038 B2B consumers, June 2026); The Reply Economic system: G2’s 2026 AI Search Perception Report (1,076 consumers, March 2026)
When you’re off that first record, the door largely closes. So do not generate extra. Diagnose appropriately, then discover the place the bottom is shifting.
How do you see the place opponents acquire floor earlier than it hits pipeline?
Watch main indicators, not lagging ones. Pipeline lags: By the point it strikes, the shift has already occurred. Class exercise and evaluation velocity lead, and you’ll see them weeks earlier.
Learn the software program class, not simply your G2 profile
Most groups watch their very own G2 profile and cease. The aggressive sign lives one stage up, within the class. Watch three issues about your rivals: their evaluation quantity, how current these evaluations are, and their motion on the G2 Grid (G2’s class rating chart that scores merchandise on satisfaction and market presence).
When a competitor’s numbers speed up, a positioning shift is forming, and it exhibits up earlier than you lose a single deal.
Supply: G2
Tip: G2 Aggressive Insights tracks this motion for you. Deal with class momentum like a pipeline metric: evaluation it weekly, give it an proprietor, tie it to an motion.
New classes are new aggressive fronts
Watch the map redraw itself. G2 added 22 new AI software program classes to its taxonomy within the first half of 2026, together with AI Advertising and marketing Brokers, Income AI Platforms, Agentic AI Browser, AI Search Visibility Optimization Instruments, and Enterprise AI Chatbots (Supply: G2 product catalog information by way of G2 MCP).
Every new class is an open aggressive entrance. No chief has locked in but, and AI hasn’t determined who the default is. Enter early, and you’ll turn out to be the peer-validated default earlier than your opponents discover the class exists. Deal with new-category entry as a land seize, not a wait-and-see.
What does software program comparability information reveal about how consumers consider you?
It names the precise matchups consumers weigh, and so they’re normally not those you assume. You suppose you compete with A and B. Your consumers are operating you towards C.
Your comparability set is your actual aggressive set
See which opponents your prospects additionally consider, and which comparability pages maintain their consideration, and also you see your actual market place as a substitute of your meant one. G2’s CMO explainer video of the G2 MCP returns precisely this: a dwell visualization of the opponents consumers examine you towards most. That view typically rewrites a positioning technique. The rival you construct battle playing cards towards will not be the one consumers really stack you up with. Repair the comparability you are actually in, and also you cease dropping offers you did not know you have been combating.
Supply: G2 YouTube
Tip: Join the G2 MCP in your ChatGPT or Claude account and determine aggressive alternatives that plug into your GTM workflows.
The AI reply runs on the identical comparability information
Patrons do not simply run comparisons on evaluation pages. They run them by way of AI, and that reply feeds on the identical information. G2 leads these solutions because the #1 cited supply throughout the comparability prompts we monitor (Supply: G2 inner information by way of Profound, July 2026). Whenever you’re absent there, the danger is not neutrality. It is misrepresentation: Patrons arrive with AI-sourced comparisons which are category-level, dated, or just flawed about you, and your gross sales workforce wastes cycles correcting them.
Alex Halliday, CEO of AirOps, put it instantly within the G2 2026 Purchaser Habits Report:
“The primary model of a purchaser’s shortlist is more and more being assembled by AI earlier than that purchaser ever lands in your web site or talks to Gross sales. If the mannequin cannot perceive why you belong within the shortlist, the customer could by no means get the prospect to both.”
Alex Halliday
CEO of AirOps
So make your worth legible to AI. Here is translate three frequent comparability indicators into motion:
|
Comparability sign |
What it tells you |
Your transfer |
|
A competitor you do not goal retains exhibiting up in your comparisons |
Your actual aggressive set is not your assumed one |
Rebuild messaging and battlecards across the precise matchup |
|
Patrons linger on one particular comparability web page |
Head-to-head comparability decides the deal |
Strengthen proof (evaluations, badges, ROI) on that actual axis |
|
A rival’s class evaluation velocity is climbing |
A positioning shift is forming upstream |
Shut the evaluation hole earlier than it reaches pipeline |
How do G2 badges and report placements work as aggressive belongings?
Software program sellers can use badges and report placements as third-party proof, however they should be exact about what’s really driving the elevate. AI would not parse a badge icon — it cites the evaluation basis and profile funding that earned the badge within the first place. The badge is the compressed, human-readable model of that very same proof; the underlying information is what exhibits up within the AI reply.
Evaluations are the muse. The info exhibits why:
|
Sign |
Determine |
Why it issues |
|
Assessment websites’ affect on purchaser shortlists |
38% (vs. 37% for AI chatbots) |
Evaluations are the one greatest shortlist affect |
|
Assessment-platform citations in AI solutions, discovery → analysis |
Rise 1.8x, from 7% to 13% |
Proof issues extra as consumers close to a choice |
|
AI-answer appearances for profiles with robust evaluation foundations |
~5x extra |
A deep evaluation base compounds your visibility |
Sources: G2 2026 Purchaser Habits Report; Kevin Indig by way of G2 2026 Purchaser Habits Report; G2
On prime of that basis, the profile tier that badges come from provides its personal multiplier:
|
Sign |
Determine |
Why it issues |
|
Share of AI citations captured by paid G2 profiles |
Paid profiles are 9% of listings, seize 60% of all AI citations |
Profile funding compounds visibility |
|
Paid vs. free quotation multiplier, managed for evaluation quantity |
2–7x at each review-volume tier |
The benefit holds even when evaluation counts are equal — it is not simply “extra evaluations” |
|
Correlation between evaluations and AI citations |
r = 0.41 (paid), r = 0.26 (free) |
Evaluations stay the dominant variable — paid standing compounds it, would not change it |
Supply: Kevin Indig, “Why Paid G2 Profiles Earn 2x the AI Citations as Free Ones,” promote.g2.com, April 2026.
Earn a badge by constructing the G2 Market Profile that this information rewards — deep, present, particular evaluations on an entire profile — and you have constructed an asset that works within the two locations the deal is set: the customer’s shortlist and the AI reply feeding it.
Holly Chen, VP of Development Advertising and marketing at Samsara, stated it plainly within the report:
“Deal with reply engines as a channel you market to intentionally. In the event you’re absent, the AI or your opponents will fill the hole with out you.”
Holly Chen
VP of Development Advertising and marketing at Samsara
How do you discover the accounts evaluating your opponents proper now?
Use purchaser intent information that identifies the accounts researching you and your rivals in actual time earlier than any type fill. The accounts studying your competitor’s profile and lingering in your comparability web page aren’t hypothetical demand. They’re in-market, mid-evaluation, and reachable as we speak.
To present you a glimpse of how we drink our personal champagne, we requested Nabiha Balala, G2’s Sr. Demand Gen Supervisor, to share how G2’s demand era workforce makes use of purchaser intent information to realize a aggressive edge.
“Purchaser intent is among the clearest methods to know what consumers are literally doing — not what we hope they’re doing. We use these insights to prioritize accounts already in-market and align our messaging to the questions they’re attempting to reply.”
Nabiha Balala
Sr. Demand Gen Supervisor at G2
Feed that sign of your goal accounts actively viewing and evaluating you with opponents into your CRM, and shut the hole between “AI really useful a competitor” and “our workforce began a dialog.” You additionally need not dwell in a dashboard to behave on it.
Comply with these steps that Alex London, CMO of G2, outlines within the G2 MCP demo.
The entire workflow runs in plain language by way of the G2 MCP, contained in the AI instruments you already use:
- Activate the G2 MCP in your AI software. No dashboard login, no CSV export.
- Ask for the accounts that considered competitor profiles. Embrace which competitor and which class.
- Ask for a visible of the opponents you are in contrast towards most.
- Act on the sign. Competitor analysis is your highest-urgency set off, so route it to gross sales the identical day.
To show these indicators into pipeline and better deal sizes, learn How GTM Groups Flip Purchaser Indicators Into Excessive-ACV Offers. For demand gen, the takeaway is easy: Competitor analysis is the clearest “in-market now” sign you may get, and you’ll pull it by asking a query.
The G2 Take: What wins AI citations, evaluation quantity, evaluation recency, or evaluation high quality?
You want each, measured towards your class rivals fairly than a common quantity. Three elements resolve whether or not your evaluation basis wins the comparability, and every does a special job.
Quantity units the ground: Classes with 10% extra evaluations earn roughly 2% extra AI citations, a small edge that compounds because the class matures (Supply: Kevin Indig, SEO and AEO professional, October 2025).
Recency is the multiplier: Present evaluations inform AI your product is dwell, used, and trusted as we speak. Three-year-old reward barely registers.
Specificity is what will get quoted: “It changed our outdated attribution software in six weeks” offers AI one thing to quote. “Useful gizmo, extremely suggest” offers it nothing.
The aggressive learn:
You do not have to out-review the entire market. Out-review the one competitor you retain dropping to, with more energizing and extra particular proof on the axis consumers care about. That is the job G2 Assessment Era is constructed to do.
Being discovered, trusted, and chosen are not a coincidence
Extra leads will not repair a aggressive drawback. The demand gen groups successful in 2026 do not generate extra demand. They ensure that when a purchaser asks AI which one is healthier, the reply already contains their title.
“My recommendation is to focus much less on gathering extra indicators, and extra on constructing repeatable actions across the indicators that matter.”
Nabiha Balala
Sr. Demand Gen Supervisor at Founding father of G2
Being present in AI search and being trusted are two various things that influence what you are promoting.
Discover out what your software program consumers are asking AI LLMs and construct your model presence that clearly caters to it — all whereas staying true to what you are promoting’s moat.
Often requested questions
How have you learnt should you’re dropping offers to a competitor fairly than to no-decision? Break your win fee down by the competitor named in every deal, and watch two G2 indicators: how typically a rival seems in your comparability information, and what number of of your misplaced offers considered that rival’s profile earlier than going darkish. A rising loss fee towards one named competitor factors to a positioning hole, not a funds freeze.
What is the quickest strategy to discover firms evaluating your opponents? Ask the G2 MCP in plain language, contained in the AI software you already use: “Present engaged accounts that considered competitor profiles, with the competitor and class, and visualize the opponents I am in comparison with most.” You get a dwell, sourced view with out logging right into a dashboard or exporting a file.
Which new AI software program classes must you watch in 2026? Begin with those adjoining to your consumers: AI Advertising and marketing Brokers, Income AI Platforms, Agentic AI Browser, AI Search Visibility Optimization Instruments, and Enterprise AI Chatbots are among the many 22 that G2 added within the first half of 2026. Declare your place in a related new class early, whereas AI hasn’t but selected a default.
What number of evaluations do you really must win in AI search? There is not any mounted quantity. What issues is your evaluation quantity, recency, and specificity relative to the competitor you are in contrast towards, not an absolute benchmark. A product with 200 current, particular evaluations can out-cite a rival with 500 stale, generic ones.
Can a smaller or newer model compete on AI search visibility with no massive funds? Sure. AI weights peer proof over advert spend, so a centered evaluation program plus an early place in a brand new class can outperform an even bigger competitor’s dated basis. The benefit goes to the model with essentially the most particular, present buyer voice within the actual comparability consumers are operating.
Edited by Supanna Das
DATA AND METHODOLOGY
This text attracts on the next sources:
- G2 AI comparison-prompt visibility — G2’s quotation and visibility monitoring throughout ~1,900 head-to-head software-comparison prompts by way of Profound, July 1–30, 2026, throughout ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, and Meta AI. G2 ranked #1 at 15% visibility.
- New AI software program classes — G2 product catalog information by way of the G2 MCP; 22 AI classes added to G2’s taxonomy between January and mid-2026.
- G2 2026 Purchaser Habits Report — 1,038 B2B consumers plus 55 GTM chief interviews, June 2026, international.
- G2 2026 AI Search Perception Report — 1,076 B2B consumers, March 2026, international.
- Kevin Indig correlation evaluation — 30,000 AI citations throughout 500 G2 classes by way of Profound, October 2025, Study.G2.
- G2 CMO demo of the G2 MCP — buyer-intent and competitive-signal workflow
