How AI Search Is Changing Vendor Discovery in Life Sciences

In a recent conversation with Dave Reske, CEO of NowSpeed, we explored how AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity are changing how companies are discovered online.

For years, digital discovery followed a predictable pattern: someone searched Google using a keyword, scanned a list of results, and clicked through websites to learn more. Today, that process is evolving. Increasingly, buyers are asking AI tools direct questions about vendors, technologies, and solutions before they ever visit a company website. These tools are becoming part of the early discovery process — summarizing information, recommending companies, and shaping how potential customers learn about new technologies. For companies in life sciences — where complex science and specialized expertise are the norm — this shift has important implications.

Vendor discovery is moving into AI conversations
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Traditional SEO focused on helping companies appear in Google search results for specific keywords. But AI search behaves differently. Instead of typing a short phrase into a search bar, users now ask full questions such as:

• Who provides microbial contamination testing for biologics manufacturing?
• What companies specialize in clinical trial patient engagement?
• What are the leading solutions for cell-based assay development? 

AI systems analyze large amounts of information and generate answers based on what they find across the web. In many cases, buyers may form their first impression of a company through these AI-generated responses.

AI models learn from publicly available information

Large language models are trained on enormous amounts of information across the web. They analyze articles, websites, directories, and other publicly available sources to understand topics and relationships between companies, technologies, and ideas. However, not all information is equally visible.

Content behind forms, private portals, or peer reviewed journals may not always be accessible to these systems. And in life sciences, some of the most valuable scientific information often lives in places that AI tools cannot easily reach. That means the public narrative about a company can matter more than ever. And it most likely makes sense to create content that promotes what you want to share from peer reviewed publications. 

AI doesn’t rely on your website alone

Another important difference from traditional search is that AI tools don’t rely only on a company’s website.
They may pull information from:

• industry articles
• directories and databases
• educational content
• analyst coverage
• media mentions

In other words, your digital presence extends far beyond your homepage. What others say about your company — and where those mentions appear — may influence how AI systems interpret and describe your business.

GEO focuses on buyer questions. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is emerging as a way to think about visibility in this new environment. Instead of focusing primarily on keywords, GEO starts with a different question:

What questions are buyers asking AI tools throughout their decision process?

Those questions may occur across the entire buying cycle — from early research to vendor evaluation.
Companies that provide clear, credible answers to those questions — across multiple sources — are more likely to appear in AI-generated responses.

The takeaway: AI search is not replacing traditional search overnight, but it is clearly changing how people explore complex topics and evaluate potential partners.
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For life sciences companies — where trust, expertise, and credibility matter — ensuring that accurate information about your company is visible across the web may become an increasingly important part of digital strategy.

Understanding how AI systems interpret and summarize that information is quickly becoming part of the modern discoverability landscape.