Case Studies

From #2 to #1: doubling a B2B brand's visibility in AI answers

Written by Gavin Garrison | Sep 28, 2026, 6:46:31 PM

The challenge

More buyers now start their research by asking an AI assistant, and our client wanted to know how it showed up in those answers: how often, in what context, and what was missing. Trellist's AI search audit, built in 2025, measures exactly that as a brand's AI surfacing rate.

The audit brought good news and a harder question. Our client was already the #2 most frequently appearing brand out of 500 competitors. The challenge was turning a solid second place into clear leadership across the AI landscape.

What we did

Trellist turned the audit findings into a tailored set of recommendations the client's own team could act on.

  • Surfacing rate measurement. We measured how often, and in what context, the brand appeared in AI-generated results across a competitive set of 500 brands.
  • Technical fixes. We identified the technical changes that would make the brand's content easier for AI systems to find and use.
  • Metadata priorities. We showed the team which metadata matters most to AI, so its effort went where it would count.
  • Language gap analysis. We pinpointed where the brand's coverage of critical key language fell short and what to add.