Marketing · BraivIQ AI Blog

90% Of B2B Purchases Will Soon Be Influenced By AI Agents: Why UK Brands Must Get Ready For Agent-Driven Buying And GEO

A striking Gartner projection is quietly reshaping how marketers need to think: within three years, 90% of B2B purchases are expected to be influenced by AI agents. Put plainly, the buyer researching your product may increasingly not be a person browsing your website, but an AI agent gathering options, comparing them and shortlisting on a human's behalf - and in retail, Anthropic and others are already shipping agents that search for products, compare options and add them to carts. This is the biggest shift in how buyers discover and choose since the search engine, and it changes what marketing has to do: not just persuade people, but be found, understood and trusted by the AI agents increasingly doing the discovery. This guide explains what agent-driven buying means, why generative engine optimisation (GEO) is fast becoming as important as SEO, and how UK brands should respond now.

September 10, 2026 · 11 min read · By BraivIQ Editorial

90% - Of B2B purchases expected to be influenced by AI agents within three years (Gartner) · 88% - Of marketers now use AI in their day-to-day roles - the practice is already mainstream · GEO - Generative engine optimisation - being found and trusted by AI answer engines and agents - is fast becoming as important as SEO · Search → agents - The biggest shift in how buyers discover and choose since the search engine

Every so often a single statistic tells you the ground is shifting under an entire discipline, and here is this year's for marketing: Gartner projects that within three years, 90% of B2B purchases will be influenced by AI agents. Sit with that for a moment. It means the entity researching your product, comparing you against competitors and drawing up a shortlist will increasingly not be a human browsing your website, but an AI agent doing that work on a person's behalf. This is not speculative: in retail, Anthropic has already released blueprints for Claude-based shopping and merchant agents that search for products, compare options, add items to carts and connect to checkout systems, and the wider market is racing in the same direction. For marketers, this is the biggest change in how buyers discover and choose since the arrival of the search engine, and it changes the job itself. Marketing has always been about being found, understood and trusted - but increasingly the one doing the finding, understanding and trust-forming is an AI agent, not a person. As an AI Agency London, we think UK brands need to start preparing for this now, and this guide is how.

Agent-Driven Buying In One Idea: For twenty years, marketing has optimised for humans finding you - through search engines, ads and websites people browse. Agent-driven buying changes the audience: increasingly, an AI agent does the discovery, gathering options, comparing them on criteria and shortlisting on a human's behalf, with the person stepping in mainly to decide among a curated few. That means a growing share of the buying journey happens before any human sees your brand - decided by whether an AI agent found you, understood what you offer, and judged you credible enough to include. If agents can't find you, can't understand you, or don't trust you, you are cut from the shortlist before a human is ever involved. Marketing's new frontier is being the brand that AI agents surface and recommend.

Why GEO Is Becoming As Important As SEO

For two decades, the discipline of being discoverable meant search engine optimisation - structuring your content and site so Google ranked you when people searched. As buyers increasingly ask AI assistants and deploy AI agents to research on their behalf, a companion discipline has emerged that marketers are rapidly adopting: generative engine optimisation, or GEO - making sure your brand is found, understood and cited by AI answer engines and agents, not just by traditional search. The mechanics differ in an important way. Search engines return a list of links for a human to choose from; AI engines and agents synthesise an answer or a shortlist and often mention only a few sources or options. Being one of ten links on page one used to be enough; being one of the two or three brands an AI actually names is the new bar, and it is a higher one. GEO is about earning that mention: creating rich, authoritative, genuinely helpful content that AI systems can understand and trust enough to surface, being consistently and clearly described across the web so agents can identify what you do, and building the kind of credibility that makes an AI comfortable recommending you. It does not replace SEO - people still search - but it sits alongside it as an equally important way of being found in a world where AI increasingly mediates discovery.

How UK Brands Should Respond Now

The temptation with a three-year projection is to file it under 'later', but the brands that will win the agent-driven era are preparing now, while it is still an advantage rather than a scramble. The response has several parts. First, make your brand legible to machines: describe clearly and consistently, everywhere it appears, what you do, who you serve and why you are credible, so an AI agent can accurately understand and represent you. Second, invest in genuinely authoritative content - the substance, expertise and clarity that AI systems increasingly reward when deciding what to surface and cite - rather than thin content designed to game old search algorithms. Third, get your structured information right: clear, accurate, machine-readable details about your products, services, pricing signals and credentials, so an agent comparing options has what it needs to include you. Fourth, keep earning real trust signals - reviews, references, authoritative mentions - because agents, like people, weigh credibility. And fifth, do not abandon human-facing marketing: for a long while buying will be a mix of agents and people, and you need to be found and persuasive to both. The through-line is that agent-driven buying rewards brands that are genuinely clear, credible and substantive - which is a healthier game than gaming algorithms ever was.

Be legible to machines - describe consistently and clearly what you do, who you serve and why you're credible, everywhere your brand appears.
Invest in authoritative content - real expertise, substance and clarity are what AI systems increasingly reward when choosing what to surface and cite.
Get structured data right - accurate, machine-readable product, service and credential information so agents comparing options can include you.
Earn genuine trust signals - reviews, references and authoritative mentions matter to agents weighing credibility, just as they do to people.
Serve humans and agents both - buying will be a mix for years; stay findable and persuasive to people while preparing for agent-led discovery.

The Bottom Line

Gartner's projection that 90% of B2B purchases will be influenced by AI agents within three years - alongside shopping and merchant agents already live in retail and 88% of marketers already using AI - marks the biggest shift in how buyers discover and choose since the search engine. The buyer researching, comparing and shortlisting your brand is increasingly an AI agent acting for a human, which means a growing share of the buying journey now happens before any person sees you, decided by whether an agent could find, understand and trust you. That is why generative engine optimisation is fast becoming as important as SEO: being one of ten links is no longer enough when AI names only a few. For UK brands the response is to start now - be legible to machines, invest in authoritative content, get your structured data right, earn real trust signals, and keep serving humans as well as agents. Reassuringly, all of that rewards genuine clarity, substance and credibility rather than algorithmic tricks. The brands that prepare for agent-driven buying while it is still an edge will be the ones AI recommends when it matters - and helping UK brands become exactly that is work we are glad to do.

References & Further Reading

Gartner - 90% of B2B purchases projected to be influenced by AI agents within three years: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom
Tofu HQ - the best AI agents for marketing in 2026: https://www.tofuhq.com/post/best-ai-agents-for-marketing
MarTech - the latest AI-powered martech news and releases (Anthropic shopping and merchant agents; GEO): https://martech.org/the-latest-ai-powered-martech-news-and-releases/
Digiday - AI marketing strategies, September 2026: https://digiday.com/events/ai-marketing-strategies-sep-2026/
Buildez - AI digital marketing: latest trends and changes in September 2026: https://buildez.ai/blog/ai-digital-marketing-september-2026-whats-changing