I really enjoyed Kerry Cunningham’s post, not least because it echoes something I saw first-hand years ago in the world of ERP and accounting systems

Back in the 1990s, during the huge system changes driven by Y2K, procurement wasn’t being led by novices. Quite the opposite

The person running the process would often introduce themselves with a wry smile and say, “I’ve been there, got the T-shirt, and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

That’s why Kerry’s research doesn’t surprise me at all when he says:
“Your buyers are experienced and have almost certainly evaluated you numerous times in the past, even if you were unaware.”

In enterprise buying, this has always been true. Buyers carry long memories. Even when a purchase looks “new,” it rarely is

As Kerry goes on to point out:
“Even for the new capability purchases, buyers were highly likely to have evaluated that vendor at some other time.”

Now LLMs may be changing where buyers look, but not how real decisions get made

6sense’s latest research, shows that while website traffic is declining, active in-market buyers are still engaging with vendors at the same levels as before

The report reveals: 
• 94% of B2B buyers use AI tools during their journey 
• 85% purchase from brands they’ve engaged with before 
• Relationships, not traffic, determines who gets remembered and chosen 

Which brings us to the line that really landed for me:
“We’re not losing web traffic to ChatGPT. We’re losing it to irrelevance.”

Conclusion
The real risk for businesses isn’t AI, new channels, or changing buyer behaviour

The real risk is failing to recognise that buyers already know you and have judged you, long before you think the conversation starts

If you’re not showing up with relevance, credibility, and value, you’re not being disrupted by technology… you’re being quietly ignored