Devang Shah: 94% of B2B Buyers Use AI to Shortlist Vendors

Introduction

Ninety four percent of B2B buyers are now using AI to shortlist vendors before your sales team hears from them. That single number should change how every B2B marketing budget gets spent. Devang Shah is VP of Marketing at LinkedIn, running the team that shapes how advertisers and marketers use LinkedIn's ad products to grow their business. Before LinkedIn he spent seventeen years building Google's ads business from the ground up. In this episode of NotJustAds we get into what that AI shift means for B2B influencer marketing, why LinkedIn is now the second most cited domain across LLMs, and why Thought Leader Ads are the mechanism turning creator trust into pipeline before a buyer ever picks up the phone.

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Key Takeaways

• 94% of B2B buyers now use AI to build their vendor shortlist, so being cited inside those models matters as much as being seen by a human.
• LinkedIn is now the second most cited domain across LLMs and the top source for professional queries.
• Buying groups now run 20+ people over 272 days, and half of them sit outside your company.
• At any given moment 95% of your buyers are not in market, so nurture beats capture as a strategy.
• Thought Leader Ads drive 2.2x higher click through rates than single image ads with the same objective.
• Creator relevance beats creator reach. A smaller, well matched voice outperforms a bigger name with the wrong audience.
• 81% of B2B marketing teams now treat LinkedIn as their primary video channel, ahead of YouTube.

B2B buyers now have an AI shortlist before you know they exist

Devang shared the number that should reset every B2B marketing plan. 94% of B2B buyers are using AI to shape their vendor shortlist. By the time someone books a call, they have already formed a view of who the real contenders are, and that view was built by a model, not a salesperson. This is the same problem Kleos was built to solve, just one step further upstream. Buyers form their opinion of your category long before your team is in the room. B2B influencer marketing is how you get into that opinion early, and now it means getting into the model as well as the feed.

LinkedIn is the source the models are citing

Devang gave a stat that most marketers have not caught up to yet. LinkedIn is now the second most cited domain across LLMs, and the top source for professional queries. He was clear on why. Models look for substance, discussion and genuine expertise, not follower count. That is exactly the creator profile Kleos activates for every client. Content built on real perspective, not brand messaging dressed up as a post, is what gets picked up and repeated back to a buyer researching your category.

The buyer group got bigger and nobody adjusted the plan

Devang put real numbers on something most B2B marketers feel but rarely measure. Buying cycles now run 272 days. More than 20 people sit inside the buyer group, and half of them do not even work at the company you are selling to. Add in that 71% of B2B buyers are Gen Z or millennial, a generation that trusts creators differently to the buyers before them, and a single champion and a single sales call stops being a strategy.

The 95% rule and why nurture beats capture

At any given moment, 95% of your buyers are not in market for your product. Most B2B budget still chases the 5% who are. The brands winning right now have moved from capturing demand to nurturing it, using creators and executives whose perspective compounds trust over months, not weeks. A single post from a trusted voice does not close a deal. A sustained presence in front of the right buying committee does, and that shift from lead volume to pipeline velocity is the same shift Kleos makes with every client.

Thought Leader Ads turn that trust into a revenue channel

Devang's data backs up what Kleos has built its model around. Thought Leader Ads generate 2.2x higher click through rates than standard single image ads with the same objective. Legal tech company Smokeball used Thought Leader Ads behind creator video testimonials and saw a 186% increase in return on ad spend, with an 8.7x increase in video completion rate. Find the creators your buyers already trust, let organic content prove what resonates, then amplify the winners directly to the buying committee. Relevance beats reach every time.

Video is a LinkedIn native channel now, not a repurposed one

Devang referenced this year's Wistia report, which found 81% of B2B marketing teams now treat LinkedIn as their primary video channel, ahead of YouTube. The content that works is not polished. It is authentic, opinionated and grounded in real perspective, whether that comes from an executive or a creator with genuine expertise.

Trust is no longer built in a single sales call. It is built continuously, across a buyer group you cannot fully see, by voices your buyers already believe and by the sources the AI models are already citing.

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Ready to turn B2B influence into pipeline?

If 94% of your buyers are shortlisting vendors with AI before your sales team gets a call, Kleos builds the creator and Thought Leader Ads strategy that gets you on that shortlist first.

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