The Mental
Av-AI-lability Index
The first study to map B2B technology brands across both human memory and machine recommendation — revealing who is truly winning the modern buying journey.
Is AI challenging the ‘Rule of Three’?
The traditional Rule of Three says buyers choose from a small, entrenched set of vendors they already know. This study set out to test whether AI is reinforcing — or reshaping — that dynamic.
Two axes. One battle for the consideration set.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a B2B marketer who hasn’t come across the idea of mental availability. Popularised by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, in a nutshell, it’s the probability that a buyer will think of your brand in a relevant buying situation. Most importantly, it proposes that buying comes from memory, not loyalty.
Four quadrants. Four realities.
Today, legacy fame isn’t enough to keep your brand at the top. In the age of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), true market leadership requires a dual strategy: you must be remembered by human buyers and recommended by language models.
To assess who’s actually winning the B2B tech landscape, we built the Mental Av-AI-lability Index — mapping brands across both the mental and AI availability axes to reveal four distinct realities.
The B2B landscape has fractured as the gap between human perception and machine logic has grown. The brands shaping the next decade won’t simply be the most established — they will be the most understood.
Why we turned the lens on ourselves
Rather than produce a report about B2B tech brands and act like we had it all figured out, the bravest thing we could do was to analyse ourselves first. We are a B2B service provider facing the exact same challenges as you — long sales cycles, a need for third-party validation, and a complex competitive landscape.
We are effectively turning our own brand into a lab — testing new tools, prompt structures, and optimisation tactics on ourselves first, to de-risk the future for you. Instead of a lecture, this is a journey.
How we built the Index
The Babel framework for building machine trust
“The 95-5 rule tells us that 95% of your buyers aren’t in the market right now. But they are using AI to build their mental shortlists right now. Every touchpoint is now a cookie crumb that biases the future AI search in your favour.”
Curious about where your brand stands?
We’ll use the Mental Av-AI-lability Index methodology to assess your brand’s position. Complete the form and a member of our team will be in touch.