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Circle & Square has released a Buyer Intelligence Guide for Chief Marketing Officers, aimed at helping B2B marketing leaders adapt to buyer behaviour shaped by artificial intelligence.
The launch reflects a shift in how business software buyers research suppliers and make decisions, with AI-driven search and peer recommendations playing a larger role in early evaluation. Circle & Square cited research showing that 69% of B2B software buyers chose a different vendor than they had first planned because of AI guidance.
That creates a challenge for marketing teams that still rely on measures such as website traffic, keyword rankings, engagement and lead volumes to judge performance. The guide argues that those indicators do not always show whether a supplier is influencing buyers at the points where purchasing decisions are formed.
Circle & Square presents the document as a framework for linking sales activity, customer feedback, content performance and pipeline patterns to a more detailed view of buyer motivations and decision behaviour.
Neeta Goplani, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Circle & Square, said the shift to AI has reduced companies' visibility into important parts of the buying journey.
"AI has not eliminated the buyer journey. It's just moved more of it outside the company's view," said Neeta Goplani, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Circle & Square.
"We created this guide to help CMOs see the buyer's decision clearly enough to earn a meaningful place inside it. Our system is a radar for buyer decisions. It helps teams monitor which buyer conversations are heating up, understand why they matter, and decide where to act, rather than waiting for a problem to show up in the pipeline," Goplani said.
Three measures
The guide is built around three areas that the consultancy calls Buyer Visibility, Buyer Alignment and Buyer Commitment. Together, they are meant to help marketing teams assess whether they are present in relevant buyer discussions, whether their materials address decision-makers' concerns and whether active deals have the conditions needed to move forward.
Buyer Visibility focuses on whether a company is part of the conversations that influence consideration, rather than simply how often it appears in search results or AI-generated responses. Buyer Alignment examines whether buyers have the information and proof needed to build internal consensus, particularly in complex purchases involving multiple stakeholders.
Buyer Commitment aims to identify obstacles within active sales opportunities. Under the framework, signs such as decision friction, unresolved proof requirements and uncertainty may indicate that an apparent pipeline opportunity is less advanced than standard reporting suggests.
These measures should be considered together rather than in isolation. The guide argues that visibility without alignment may attract attention without changing perceptions, while alignment without commitment may leave a buyer informed but not ready to decide.
Buyer zone
At the centre of the model is what Circle & Square calls the Buyer Zone, described as a connected view of the situation surrounding a purchase decision. That includes the reason for change, the people involved, the questions being asked, the alternatives under review and the evidence needed to support a choice.
The concept shifts analysis away from broad product categories or audience segments and toward the circumstances that trigger a search for a new supplier. In practical terms, the firm argues that knowing a buyer is researching a market category is less useful than understanding why the search began, which stakeholders must agree and what proof would establish confidence.
The guide also outlines five steps for building what it calls a buyer intelligence system. These begin with identifying a business problem, such as stalled deals or weak conversion from leads to revenue, then move to research on buyer questions and alternatives, validation against actual buyer behaviour, creation of a baseline view across the three measures and a programme of focused experiments.
The framework is designed to work alongside existing marketing systems and agency relationships rather than replace them. Its aim is to help marketing leaders interpret available information through the lens of buyer decision-making and act on specific points of friction.
Goplani's views on buyer intelligence were recently included in a Forrester vision report on the subject. Circle & Square said it was one of three companies interviewed for the report, alongside Cisco and Snowflake.
Goplani said marketers should focus on relevance in the moments that shape a purchase outcome.
"The goal isn't to appear in more AI-generated answers," Goplani said. "It's to appear in the conversations that can change the decision."