Professional Services Firms Know AI Search Is Coming. Are They Ready for It Themselves?
In our survey report, Professional Services Firms’ Positioning and AI Search Readiness, say they’re paying close attention to how AI search works.
60% describe themselves as “very” or “extremely” aware of the emerging standards for AI-mediated search visibility.
That’s an encouraging number. The question is what firms are actually doing with that awareness.
Are Professional Services Firms Optimizing Their Own Sites for AI Search?
Not really, at least not to the degree their awareness would suggest.
Only 11% of firms rate their own website as “very optimized” for AI-mediated search, the kind of search now happening on platforms like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini.
The largest group, 63%, land at “somewhat optimized.” Another 20% say their site isn’t optimized at all.
Much like new business development itself, firms know the standards exist, but haven’t gotten around to applying them to their own site.
Why Isn’t Awareness Turning Into Action?
Because clients come first, understandably.
That pattern is familiar to us, and it’s a big part of why RSW/B2B exists.
Firm leadership rarely has the bandwidth to treat their own firm like a client.
Between managing client work, staffing, and running the business day to day, optimizing the firm’s own site for how AI reads it tends to fall to the bottom of the list, even when the awareness is there.
Does AI Search Visibility Actually Matter for New Business?
Yes, and we’re seeing it firsthand.
Several of our most recent conversations with firm leadership started with them finding us through an AI search.
That’s becoming a more common path to getting discovered.
Older, once-reliable sources of new business, like networking and referrals, have been softening industry-wide, while outbound outreach has held steady, and search has been on the rise.
Roughly 20% of firms report new business coming from prospects finding them online.
That’s not an overwhelming share on its own, but it’s moving in one direction while older sources move in the other.
Google has also published its own guidance on optimizing for generative AI search, and the core message lines up with what the broader SEO community has been saying: the fundamentals still matter, because generative AI features on Google Search are built on top of its existing search ranking and quality systems.
Being ready for AI-mediated search largely comes down to doing the SEO fundamentals well, then building on top of them.
What Should Firms Do About Their Own AI Search Readiness?
Start by looking at the site the way an AI system reads it, not the way a person browsing on a laptop does.
A generative engine isn’t scrolling a homepage top to bottom, it’s pulling specific, well-structured answers from wherever they live on the site, whether that’s a services page, a blog post, or an about page.
If your firm’s expertise and positioning are buried in dense paragraphs with no clear structure, there’s less for a system like that to pull from and cite.
The same consistency that matters for a human prospect matters here too.
Over 80% of firms in our survey said their positioning shows up “usually” or “always” across touchpoints like their website, LinkedIn, and proposals.
That consistency should extend to AI search readiness as well, since a generative engine forming an impression of a firm is likely pulling from more than just the homepage.
