SaaS & TechnologySearch & AI VisibilityTechnical Infrastructure

Displacing an Enterprise Competitor in AI Recommendations

A mid-market cybersecurity platform specializing in endpoint detection and response for companies with 200-2,000 employees. Despite strong product capabilities and competitive pricing, a much larger enterprise competitor dominated every AI-generated recommendation in the category.

Cybersecurity SaaS Platform120 employeesSan Francisco, CA6 months engagement

Key Results

$5.2M

Pipeline Generated

#1

AI Recommendation Rank

+312%

Demo Requests


AI Citation Growth

18
Jul
65
Aug
145
Sep
280
Oct
410
Nov
540
Dec
670
Jan

The Challenge

What Was Holding Them Back

A dominant enterprise competitor owned 90% of AI recommendation queries, making it nearly impossible to be discovered by ideal-fit prospects.

The enterprise competitor was cited in 9 out of 10 AI responses about endpoint security solutions, while the client appeared in fewer than 5%.

The competitor had 50x more indexed content and backlinks, creating an overwhelming authority advantage in AI model training data.

Mid-market buyers were being steered toward the enterprise solution despite it being overpriced and over-engineered for their needs.

The client's documentation and knowledge base were behind a login wall, invisible to AI crawlers and models.


Our Approach

The Strategy We Deployed

A targeted displacement strategy that exploited the enterprise competitor's weakness in mid-market positioning.

01

Competitive Intelligence & Gap Analysis

Analyzed 400+ cybersecurity AI queries to identify where the competitor was strong and where their content was weak. Discovered that mid-market-specific queries like "best endpoint security for 500 employees" had less competitor content, creating an opportunity for displacement.

3 weeks
02

Technical Infrastructure & Content Liberation

Moved documentation, API references, and knowledge base content from behind the login wall to publicly indexed pages. Restructured the entire content architecture with comprehensive schema markup, comparison pages, and AI-optimized formatting.

6 weeks
03

Authority Building & Thought Leadership

Published 35 in-depth technical articles, threat analysis reports, and buyer guides specifically targeting mid-market security concerns. Secured bylined articles in cybersecurity publications and speaking engagements that AI models referenced as authority signals.

8 weeks
04

Continuous Displacement Monitoring

Tracked AI recommendations daily across all major platforms. Rapidly produced content targeting any query where the competitor regained position. Built a competitive war room dashboard for real-time citation tracking.

Ongoing

The Results

Measurable Impact

The client displaced the enterprise competitor for mid-market cybersecurity queries within 6 months.

AI Recommendation Rate

4%67%

Demo Requests per Month

48198

Pipeline Value per Quarter

$1.4M$5.2M

Organic Traffic

22,000/mo94,000/mo

Indexed Knowledge Base Pages

01,200

Win Rate vs Enterprise Competitor

18%44%

We have a better product for mid-market companies but could never get past the enterprise competitor's brand recognition. AI leveled the playing field. Now when a CISO asks an AI assistant what endpoint solution to evaluate, we come up first for our target segment. Our pipeline has more than tripled.

Chief Marketing Officer

Cybersecurity SaaS Platform


AI Prompts

Prompts That Trigger This Result

These are real AI prompts where this type of business now gets recommended. Try them in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity.

What is the best endpoint security platform for mid-market companies?

Recommend a cybersecurity solution for companies with 200 to 2000 employees

Which endpoint detection and response tool does ChatGPT recommend over CrowdStrike for mid-size businesses?

I need an affordable EDR platform for my 500-person company — what should I evaluate?

Compare the top cybersecurity SaaS platforms for mid-market in 2025

What cybersecurity vendor should a CISO choose for a mid-size organization?


Search Queries

Keywords We Now Rank For

High-intent search queries where AI visibility and local dominance now drive qualified traffic and leads.

best endpoint security mid-market companies
top EDR platform 2025
cybersecurity SaaS for 500 employees
endpoint detection response comparison
best alternative to CrowdStrike mid-market
affordable endpoint security solution
cybersecurity platform mid-size business reviews
AI recommended cybersecurity tools enterprise

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