David vs. Goliath in UK cyber: how GEO search is rewriting the rules
If you’re new here, let me introduce you to The Mental Av-AI-lability Index. It’s a major piece of research we conducted with Sapio Research, exploring how B2B brands show up both in human memory and in GEO search. And what did it find? Oh, you know, only that AI has fundamentally altered the B2B buying journey, quite possibly forever. Case in point: 94% of enterprise purchases now involve AI at the vendor evaluation stage.
If we put a magnifying lens on the UK’s cybersecurity sector, this trend holds up. The report reveals an ‘elbows out’ landscape; crowded and highly competitive, with vendors jostling for space. But it also shows GEO acting as a market leveller, with algorithms often favouring specialised authority of smaller vendors over industry giants with generalised offerings. Let’s dive in.
What’s in a name?
Historically, buyers looking for cybersecurity partners typically turned to the vendors with the biggest budgets and the strongest legacy fame. They sat at the top of Google search results, with the funds to invest in SEO or buy up their competitors' search terms. They were also simply the first to come to mind as household names in the cyber space. This is called the ‘Rule of Three’, whereby buyers simply default to the names they already know.
And while human memory (mental availability) still remains a decisive factor, with 87% of buyers ultimately choosing a familiar vendor, how new entrants are discovered has shifted significantly. Today, 32% of buyers use an AI tool to find a new vendor, officially outpacing analyst reports and traditional search engines.
The rules are being rewritten. And to win out today, cyber brands must conquer two distinct axes:
- Mental Availability: being remembered by human IT directors
- AI Availability: being recommended by language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity
So, what are the quadrants in the Index? And where do the UK’s cyber brands sit?
Titans vs. Sleeping Giants
The Index highlights a divide among household names in the UK’s cybersecurity market. Dedicated security giants and massive software conglomerates, such as CrowdStrike and Microsoft, sit comfortably in the ‘Titan’ quadrant. They command high mental availability from buyers (i.e., people know the name) and also have the ubiquitous, heavily-cited digital presence required to dominate AI recommendations. This is a strong position to be in, but it’s also an easy one to sleepwalk out of.
Our research found that GEO penalises vendors with overly broad or fragmented portfolios. This means that legacy tech giants with sprawling, complex offerings - such as Cisco or IBM - find themselves on the precipice of slipping into the ‘Sleeping Giants’ quadrant. Here, while these vendors remain famous to human buyers, their lack of a sharp, singular architecture is making them increasingly invisible to AI algorithms.
The rise of Algorithmic Disruptors
Perhaps the most standout revelation from the UK cyber data is the rise of the ‘Algorithmic Disruptor’. These are hyper-focused, pure-play vendors who specialise in niche areas like threat detection and zero-trust architectures. And according to our Index, they’re consistently punching above their weight.
They feed AI search engines exactly what they want: open, structured and authoritative answers on specific topics. As a result, these disruptors are capturing a disproportionate share of voice across major LLMs. They may lack decades of historical brand fame, but they are built for today’s zero-click discovery.
What this means for cyber marketers
The key takeaway for UK cybersecurity brands is that legacy fame no longer guarantees anything. GEO is rebalancing the status quo, and multi-billion-dollar conglomerates can now be outmanoeuvred in the AI search game by significantly smaller, content-rich cyber firms with a highly focused digital footprint.
To come out on top of the modern buying journey, marketing teams must tap into both streams of awareness - where algorithms filter, and humans decide. In this new landscape, owning a specialised niche isn't just an advantage; it’s your strongest defence.
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