Event suppliers and contractors
Be the supplier the AI engine names when the brief goes out
Buyers now ask ChatGPT and Google AI for a shortlist before they ask anyone for a quote. We measure whether your business is on that shortlist, and do the work to put it there.
01
Who this is for
Suppliers who get specified into an event by someone else's decision.
- Stand designers, contractors and build companies
- Furniture, equipment and structure hire
- Lighting, AV, staging and production
- Catering and bar services
- Branding, print, signage and graphics
- Logistics, storage and installation crews
If a marketing manager, organiser or planner is choosing between you and two other firms they found online, this is the work that decides whether you are one of the three.
02
What a buyer actually asks
Buyers rarely type a keyword. They describe a situation and ask for a recommendation.
They ask who builds custom stands near a particular venue. They ask who hires furniture for a conference of a certain size. They ask which AV company handles a specific kind of production. They ask what it should cost.
Those questions get answered with two or three company names. We track the real phrasings for your category and region, every day, across six engines, and record which firms get named.
03
What we measure, and how often
We sample six AI surfaces every day: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. For every buyer question we track, we record whether you were named, whether you were cited with a link, and which competitors were named alongside you.
That matters because AI visibility is not a stable ranking. Independent measurement of AI search puts day to day overlap in cited sources at roughly 0.34 to 0.42, so a single check on a single day tells you very little. One screenshot of a flattering ChatGPT answer is not evidence. A daily series across six engines is.
04
Why suppliers get missed
The pattern is consistent across the supplier businesses we have measured.
The site does not say what you actually do. Positioning copy reads well to a human and tells an engine nothing. "Bringing brands to life through unforgettable experiences" cannot be turned into a recommendation. "We design and build custom exhibition stands from 20 to 100 square metres, from our own workshop" can.
Coverage is implied, not stated. You work at venues across the country, but the site never lists them. An engine asked about a specific venue has nothing to match against.
Price is a secret. Engines quote pages that contain specifics, and buyers ask about cost constantly. A page with honest ranges and what drives them gets cited far more often than one that says "contact us for a quote".
Crawlers are blocked. Often by accident, through a setting nobody remembers changing. It is the first thing we check.
05
What we will not promise
Two things we will not claim, because the evidence does not support them yet.
AI engines do not send much traffic. Independent panel data puts referrals from AI assistants at under 1% of all web traffic. The value of being named is that a buyer arrives already knowing who you are, or types your company into Google later. It is rarely a click you can watch happen.
Attribution is early. We install first-party tracking that records AI crawler visits, AI referrals and enquiries, so the picture gets clearer over time. Anyone promising you a tidy lead count from ChatGPT today is guessing.
What we can show you is measured: how often each engine names you, whether it links to you, and who it names instead.
Common questions
We get most work through repeat clients and word of mouth. Does this matter?
It matters for the work you are not winning. Repeat business is a strength, but it hides the enquiries that never reach you because a buyer shortlisted three other firms an engine named. The measurement shows you what is happening in that part of the market.
Should we publish our prices?
Ranges, usually, with an explanation of what moves them. Engines preferentially quote content containing specifics such as prices and dates, and buyers ask about cost more than almost anything else. It does not have to be a fixed price list to be useful.
Which AI engines do you track?
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, sampled daily and reported separately. Published audits put the overlap in sources cited between engines at roughly 11% to 26%, so one engine tells you little about another.
How is this different from paying for directory listings?
Directories can help, because third-party mentions widen the pool of evidence an engine can draw on. The difference is measurement. We can show you whether a given listing changed how often you are named, rather than assuming it did.
Do you work with suppliers outside the exhibition sector?
Yes. Furniture hire, lighting and AV, staging, catering and print all sit in the same buying pattern. The questions we track differ by category, the method does not.
See who the engines name in your category today
Book a free intro call. We will run the questions your buyers ask through six AI engines beforehand, so you can see the current shortlist in your category, including whether you are on it.