Enterprise vendor research has shifted. A few years ago, most buying journeys started with a familiar mix: Google searches, analyst reports, peer recommendations, and industry events. Today, AI assistants have quietly become a new entry point.
Treble's Press-to-Pipeline Activation in the Age of AI report, a survey of 300 enterprise technology buyers, found that 47% now begin vendor research with AI tools, ahead of traditional search engines and vendor websites. Once they’re comparing options, that number rises sharply: 93% use AI to compare vendors. And the buyers with the most purchasing authority are the heaviest users. Some 72% of CIOs and CTOs use ChatGPT when researching vendors.
But this shift isn't hitting every sector the same way. Hardtech companies face a different version of this challenge, and in many cases, a more difficult one.
Why Hardtech Doesn't Show Up
Hardtech companies, in industries like aerospace, defense, semiconductors, robotics, energy, and infrastructure, have good reasons for their smaller public footprints. They sell through established OEM relationships and supplier networks. They operate in regulated industries where media attention can feel like a risk. Product development and certification cycles are long, which means fewer announcements.
These instincts made sense when buyers came to you through trade shows and direct relationships. They make less sense now, when those same buyers are asking an AI assistant about your category before they ever visit your website.
The result is an information availability gap. When a VP of engineering asks ChatGPT to compare motion control suppliers or evaluate semiconductor packaging vendors, the AI tool pulls from publicly available sources: press coverage, analyst mentions, partnership announcements, and funding news. Companies with a steady presence in earned media are described in specific, credible terms. Companies without one get a vague paragraph. Or worse, nothing at all.
What Changes When Public Signals Increase
When that gap closes, the effect is measurable. We saw this play out with an early-stage aerospace and defense client. When we started working together, the company had strong technology and top-tier investors, but virtually no media footprint.
We used their funding announcement to tell a bigger story about supply chain disruption in their industry. That single announcement generated coverage in a major tech publication, the leading aerospace trade journal, and more than a dozen funding and defense outlets. From there, we built a drumbeat: partnership milestones with a major OEM became trade media features, the founders earned national recognition, and a wire service covered their first production contract.
As that coverage accumulated, AI tools went from having nothing to say about the company to describing it with specificity and consistency.
Unfortunately, the signal decays over time. Our report found that 92% of buyers say coverage from the past 90 days matters when evaluating vendors. Visibility is a continuously refreshed signal, and when it goes quiet, AI tools and the market move on.
The Bottom Line
Hardtech companies are solving some of the most consequential problems in the global economy. Many have better technology and deeper expertise than their more visible competitors. But visibility is no longer something you can opt out of. The buyers evaluating these companies are doing their homework through AI, and AI can only describe what it's been trained on.
For companies competing in long, complex buying cycles, the research phase increasingly shapes everything that follows. The ones investing in sustained, strategic communications will be part of that early conversation. The ones that aren't will have to work harder to get included.
Download the Press-to-Pipeline Activation in the Age of AI report for the full findings. And if you want to understand how your public footprint appears in AI-driven research, Treble offers a free AI Visibility & Earned Media Readiness Assessment.