How to Win AI Search Shortlists with G2 | Sydney Sloan & Jeremy Levin

Buyers now start their research in AI chatbots and agents, and the shortlists they get back are shrinking. In this Scale VP Marketing Council session, Sydney Sloan (CMO EIR, Scale Venture Partners) and Jeremy Levin (Enterprise Account Manager, G2) show how to make your G2 profile work for AEO, so your brand makes the shortlist. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN How G2's latest research shows the buyer journey shifting to LLMs, and why day-one shortlists decide most deals How to write your G2 profile for both human readers and AI crawlers Three high-impact ideas: discussion pages as FAQs, features and battle cards, and pricing pages Why to win your entry category first before expanding to others How solutions pages, curated reviews, and comparison pages can shape your story How to build a steady review program, and why capturing reviews in your product beats email outreach How to think about attribution for G2 and AEO CHAPTERS 0:00 G2's latest buyer behavior trends 0:42 How the buyer journey changed: from keywords to LLMs 1:19 Shrinking shortlists and "single-shot" recommendations 2:36 CFOs, proof, and AI agents making purchases 3:22 Why the day-one shortlist decides the deal 4:42 Why peer review sites matter for AEO 5:39 Optimizing your G2 profile for AEO 6:45 Writing for human readers and AI bots 7:29 Discussion pages and user-generated content 8:17 Custom research with AI voice interviews 8:54 Live profile walk-through 11:15 Who should own your G2 profile? 13:12 Remove PDFs: LLMs won't open them 14:03 Review summaries, sentiment, and category pages 15:45 Win your entry category first 17:04 Idea 1: Discussion pages as FAQs 19:40 Idea 2: Features and battle cards 22:07 Idea 3: Pricing pages 23:47 Quiz: which profile elements get the most engagement? 26:55 Don't send G2 visitors to your homepage 27:24 Solutions pages for platforms and verticals 30:27 Q&A: customer proof in security and fintech 31:59 Public sector reviewers and compliance 33:15 Beyond G2: Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp 33:41 Marketplace reviews: AWS and beyond 35:12 Why LLMs trust review content 36:42 Building an always-on review program 37:15 Why email outreach is fading and in-product review capture wins 40:22 Case study: Abacum's 10x citation volume 41:23 Comparison pages and badges that earn citations 42:43 Pay-per-lead and Gartner Digital Markets 44:57 Q&A: AI voice research and first-party data 48:13 Q&A: attributing G2 and AEO impact 50:55 Wrap-up ABOUT SCALE VENTURE PARTNERS Scale Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm. The Go-to-Market Advisory Group hosts 40+ events a year and advises portfolio companies one-to-one. Subscribe to our Substack: https://www.howwescaledthis.com/ Connect with Sydney Sloan:   / sydsloan   Connect with Jeremy Levin:   / jehlevin   #AEO #G2 #B2BMarketing #AnswerEngineOptimization #BuyerJourney #AISearch