AI-Mediated Shortlisting: When B2B Buyers Ask AI to Research and Recommend Vendors
In AI-mediated shortlisting, a buyer has a multi-turn conversation with AI to match their requirements against vendor capabilities and produce a shortlist of the few that are the best fit. AI recommends those vendors and explains why each one fits.
Don't have time to read a 10,000-word website?
Ask AI to explain what I am talking about and if it applies to you.
The exact prompt, nothing hidden:
"Read https://www.dowhat.works and explain AI-mediated shortlisting as David Lee of Do What Works describes it. Then ask me follow-up questions about my situation so you can tell me where it may or may not apply to my company."
Using AI as a research assistant is new, but the jobs a buyer needs to complete to hire a vendor have not changed:
- Job 1: Discover vendors
- Job 2: Build the shortlist
- Job 3: Validate vendors
There are many ways for a buyer to discover a vendor, and AI is one of them. However, after discovering vendors, more buyers are outsourcing Job 2, building the shortlist, to AI.
AI does not build the shortlist on its own.
The questions it researches come from the buyer's conversation with it. They are the same six questions buyers have been asking since before AI and before Google:
- Does this vendor solve my problem?
- Do they work with companies like mine?
- How do they do the work?
- Can they prove results?
- Are they credible?
- How does the engagement work?
AI finds the answers to these questions on the buyer's behalf.
AI builds its answers mostly from the vendor's website, the place that can best answer all six questions.
Having the answers there is not enough. AI needs to return an accurate answer. Designing the website as a database increases the probability that it does: each fact has one home, so no answer is spread across several pages and no two pages disagree.
Each of the six questions is one topic, so a website needs six foundational pages, one for each question.
I am David Lee of Do What Works, an independent B2B marketing strategist focused on AI-mediated shortlisting.
The Problems I Solve
I help B2B companies whose marketing is not producing the leads it used to. The problems differ from owner to owner. They include:
Your traffic is down, your leads are down, and you do not know why.
Your AEO, GEO, or AI visibility reports look good, but you are not seeing the leads.
You got a proposal from a marketing agency and want an independent second opinion.
You do not know if your marketing budget is going to the right tactics.
The root cause is more buyers outsourcing the research to AI. Solving these problems means adapting to AI-mediated shortlisting. Problems I Solve describes each one.
Who I Work With
I work with B2B companies doing $2M to $20M in revenue. The CEO or owner is involved in the sale, and the buyers research before they buy.
My clients typically spend $10,000 to $30,000 a month on marketing. Most are in:
Manufacturing
Technology
Professional services
Commercial construction
Logistics and distribution
Healthcare services
I am based in Irvine, California, and work with clients across the US.
How I Work
The AI Shortlist Audit tests what AI recommends by simulating your buyer's conversation with AI. I build each simulated buyer conversation from an interview with your CEO or sales team about your five best clients, so the audit is customized to your company.
Each one includes what a buyer tells AI: who they are, what problem they are trying to solve, and what they are looking for in a vendor.
How I Work describes how I build and run the simulations, and what the audit measures.
About David Lee
I am an independent B2B marketing strategist focused on AI-mediated shortlisting. My training is in strategy consulting: an economics degree from UCLA, an MBA from USC, and Deloitte Consulting. I also ran a marketing agency for 10 years.
I see AI-mediated shortlisting as a business change, not a technology challenge. I teach it to CEO groups as a certified Vistage speaker.
I have no retainer to sell. About has my background and how I get paid.
The AI Shortlist Audit
The AI Shortlist Audit shows you how to increase the probability that AI discovers and recommends you when a buyer like your best clients tells AI their requirements and asks for a vendor shortlist.
The audit takes three hours of your time: two one-hour meetings at the start, and a one-hour delivery meeting two weeks after the second. You get an executive summary for you and a reference document for your marketing team or agency. The fee is $10,000.
AI Shortlist Audit describes how the engagement works.