Not every client is equally exposed. Two structural conditions explain why.
The agencies who get this right in 2026 will be the ones who can walk into a client review already knowing which accounts are vulnerable, and why. That reading is not guesswork. It comes from two specific conditions.
1. Informational-query dependency
Over 91% of informational queries now trigger an AI Overview. Brand queries? Less than 1%. Clients whose inbound pipeline relies on "what is", "how does", "best way to" traffic lose at the discovery layer — the prospect gets the answer from the AI, and the click never arrives.
2. Content-led acquisition
Clients who have invested in long-form educational content, comparison pages, and technical guides are exposed by design. That content is precisely what AI summarises without sending the visitor on. The longer and more complete the guide, the cleaner the AI summary — and the less reason for the click.
Add the two together and the picture is not subtle. A handful of your clients will be carrying the bulk of the exposure in your book.
The profile you are looking for in your book:
- Content-heavy B2B site with a working blog strategy.
- Limited brand-search volume relative to non-brand organic traffic.
- Pipeline that quietly depends on being the first organic result for mid-funnel queries.
- A growth story told internally around "inbound works for us".
Every bullet on that list describes HubSpot. If the firm that wrote the inbound playbook has reported a 70% decline, no client on your list has a structural reason to assume they are safer.
Run the profile across your book. The account list that falls out is your Q2 priority list.
You do not need a data platform to do this. Ten minutes with your client list, the site of each one, and a coffee is enough. For each account, ask:
- 1 Does most of their non-brand organic traffic arrive on informational pages (guides, definitions, "how does", "best way to")?
- 2 Is their brand-search volume thin compared with their non-brand organic traffic?
- 3 Has their content strategy quietly been doing more of the work than their paid programme for the last two or three years?
- 4 If you asked their commercial director this week, would they say they can still feel the inbound momentum they described a year ago?
Any client who scores high on the first three is, almost certainly, about to score lower on the fourth — if they have not already.
The partner who raised it first, with an answer ready. Or the partner who got asked.
These are two very different conversations. In the first one, you are the strategic partner who anticipated a category shift and walked into the room with a diagnosis and the right response. In the second, your client has already heard the pitch from a competing agency, and you are answering questions rather than leading them.
The answer most agencies will reach for is some version of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) or Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) — get cited in the AI answer. That is worth testing. It is not a business you would stake a client relationship on. We take that argument apart in the next piece in the series.
The durable answer is a route to market the algorithm does not govern. Direct access to named decision-makers — targeted email, telephone, post — reaches specific people in specific companies by name, role and sector. No auction. No gatekeeper. No AI summary absorbing the message before the prospect sees it. This is a channel many digital-first agencies do not have in-house. You can, with a data partner who handles the targeting and selection while you deliver the strategic value to the client.
Score your book's exposure in 60 seconds.
Five questions, designed for agency leaders. The output is a commercially honest picture of how much of your book is riding on the channel taking the heaviest hit — and a next step for raising the conversation with the right clients first. Neutral enough to use as an internal readiness check.
Score your book in 60 seconds →No sign-up. No email capture. No pitch.
See a UK B2B market analysis for one of your client sectors.
Tell us which sector one of your most-exposed clients sits in. We will prepare a neutral UK B2B market analysis — market size, decision-maker density by seniority, geographic concentration, and the channel mix that typically works. The kind of briefing you can take into a client review without needing to name names. No commitment, no pitch.
Show me a market analysis →Or call us on 01626 777400 to walk through your book.