The Funnel Has Gone Invisible
B2B marketers are witnessing a fundamental shift in how buyers discover and engage with content. The familiar marketing funnel—where prospects move from awareness to consideration to decision through trackable touchpoints—seems to be vanishing.
AI-driven search hasn't destroyed the B2B funnel so much as made large parts of it invisible. In this new landscape, success relies on adapting to reputation economics, grappling with zero-click journeys and lost attribution, and building a durable content moat rooted in trust and unique insights.
According to Profound, an AI visibility platform optimising brand presence, nearly 80% of buyers rely on answer engines for at least half of their decision-making process. This leads to an "invisible funnel" where most of the early touchpoints and research steps leave no trace in your web analytics. When the first interaction seen is a demo request or contact form, it might feel like leads are appearing from thin air, the result of an invisible funnel that started and progressed entirely within AI-driven channels.
Buyers emerging from this invisible funnel may already be far down the path to a decision. Bain & Company reports that 85% of B2B buyers ultimately purchase from one of the vendors they had on their radar from the very start of their research. If AI assistants are front-loading that research, buyers might form a "day one list" without ever engaging with broader content or sales outreach. This makes it harder for marketers to insert new brands or influence consideration mid-funnel. If you weren't in that initial AI-fed answer, you might not exist in the buyer's mind at all.
