BUSINESS MATTERS
high-rise residential schemes.” Interestingly, UK data found
construction is one of the lowest-adopting sectors for AI internally - around 1% adoption in construction firms themselves, versus 37% in professional / technical small firms. This suggests the businesses being searched for are, on average, way behind the people doing the searching. And hey presto, an instant shortlist,
and guess what, there’s also no need to click through to a supplier’s website. Across search more broadly, 60% of Google searches now end without anyone clicking through to a site at all. In construction procurement, where buyers are working to tight programmes and can’t afford a compliance error, I’d expect that number to be even higher. As buyers and consumers, the rise of
AI search over the past few years has taught us we can ask a question and get a pretty accurate answer. Previously, it would direct us, and we would still have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
An optimised website is no longer all you need What has become apparent during this
change, is that a Google ranking and an optimised website no longer guarantee you’re making that shortlist. AI tools aren’t ranking pages, they’re gathering content they can find, understand and trust, and giving you an answer. If your certifications, project case studies, technical data sheets, and thought leadership aren’t structured in a way that’s easy for an AI model to extract and cite, you simply won’t be mentioned. It doesn’t matter how good your
relationship with the outgoing buyer was, or how long you’ve been on the framework, lists are being rebuilt by a machine that has never met you or your sales team. But we are now seeing suppliers in
this space doing things a bit differently. First, they’re treating their credentials as content, and making it work harder. Accreditations, project case studies, and performance data are being repurposed and clearly visible on their websites, in language that answers the exact questions a buyer or an AI tool would ask. Secondly, AI tools look for credibility
from outside your own website, such as trade press, industry bodies, and review platforms, so being mentioned and linked to by trusted sources in the construction
and manufacturing press carries more weight now than it did five years ago. It’s one of the key reasons why digital PR campaigns are on the rise, and working hand-in-hand with search, or generative engine optimisation (GEO) teams. Finally, they’re keeping content
current, because news about a win from 2020 or a case study that hasn’t been updated since before the pandemic is stale to both buyers and AI. Web presence is something that needs to be fluid rather than built and forgotten. None of this means relationship building
is no longer important, nor should we stop networking with people who buy and specify, we just need to understand that AI is bypassing this, and there’s something we can do about it. Our own research into how search and procurement behaviour is shifting backs this up, and we see it across every single sector we work in. So, has AI killed the approved supplier list? Not quite, but it’s changing the rules on how we get there. We still need to be trusted, but by machines as well as humans.
www.wearecatalyst.co.uk www.welding-world.com WeldingWorld1 / 35
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