Bitsight, the global leader in cyber risk intelligence, partnered with XLR8 AI to build and accelerate AI search visibility across its two most commercially critical query types: competitor alternative queries and core product discovery queries. Over the engagement, citations in the Competitor Alternatives experiment tripled, and citations in the Discovery Core Product experiment grew by over 60% with Bitsight consistently appearing in 75% of AI-generated answers across its priority categories.
Key Results
Competitor Alternatives Experiment citations tripled — from 725 to 2,115 (May 26 → June 23)
Discovery Core Product citations grew 64% — from 1,163 to 1,902 over the same period, with visibility holding above 70% across executions
Competitor Alternatives visibility reached 48.7% — up from 40.1% at the start of the engagement in April
Discovery visibility sustained above 70% — consistently across GPT Fast, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity
Who Is Bitsight?
Bitsight is the leading cyber risk platform for global enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. The company, founded in 2011 and headquartered in Boston, pioneered the concept of security ratings — objective, data-driven measurements of an organization's cybersecurity performance, similar to a credit score — and has since expanded into a comprehensive platform covering Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM), External Attack Surface Management (EASM), Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), and Security Posture Management.
Bitsight processes over 540 billion cyber events, scans 4 billion IP addresses, and collects 1 billion compromised credentials from the deep and dark web weekly. The platform serves over 3,500 customers globally — including 38% of Fortune 500 companies, 4 of the top 5 investment banks, and 180+ government agencies — and is recognized as a Leader in the Forrester Wave for Cybersecurity Risk Ratings Platforms and the Frost Radar for Attack Surface Management.
The Challenge: Winning the Comparison Conversation in AI Search
Cybersecurity buyers increasingly start their vendor evaluation process in AI search. When a CISO or third-party risk manager asks ChatGPT or Claude "what are the best alternatives to CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence for CTI?" or "what's the best TPRM platform?" — those answers directly shape shortlists and RFP decisions.
Bitsight faced a specific challenge: while the brand had strong overall visibility in AI-generated answers, it was less consistently present in the highest-value comparison and alternative queries, exactly where buyers are actively choosing between vendors.
LLMs don't surface a vendor in competitor comparison queries just because it's a category leader. They cite vendors that appear in structured comparison content, competitor analysis guides, and authoritative third-party listicles that LLMs have been trained to trust. Bitsight needed that content infrastructure built and optimized — and it needed to be done at the level of semantic precision that AI retrieval systems require.
How XLR8 AI Built Bitsight's AI Visibility
1. Built the Competitor Alternatives Content Infrastructure
Produced competitor comparison guides and alternative listicles targeting the exact queries buyers use when evaluating Bitsight against its top competitors in the CTI and TPRM space. Each piece was structured for LLM retrieval: specific product comparisons, use-case differentiation, and "best for" positioning that AI systems extract and cite.
This included a dedicated execution plan for competitor comparison content, plus revision cycles where guides were updated against Bitsight's competitive weaknesses identified in the experiment data — ensuring the content addressed the actual objections buyers were seeing in AI-generated answers.
2. Produced Category-Specific CTI, TPRM, and EASM Articles
Built a library of articles targeting Bitsight's core product categories — Cyber Threat Intelligence, Third-Party Risk Management, and External Attack Surface Management — structured around the informational and discovery queries security and risk teams ask AI assistants at the top of their research process. Content was designed to establish Bitsight as the authoritative answer before a buyer even gets to a comparison.
3. Optimized Product Pages for AI Retrieval
Executed a product page optimization plan across Bitsight's Platform and Solution pages, updating content structure, metadata, and semantic signals to increase AI crawler discoverability and retrieval probability. This included cross-checking primary data against the discovery query set to ensure content matched the actual language LLMs were using to describe Bitsight's categories.
4. Ran Structured Visibility Experiments Across Major LLMs
Built and monitored experiments across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, GPT Fast, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity — separately tracking competitor alternative queries and core product discovery queries. Weekly and biweekly execution cycles provided the feedback loop to identify gaps and prioritize optimization actions.
5. Expanded Frontier Model Coverage
As new frontier models entered AI search, XLR8 AI updated Bitsight's experiments to include emerging models — ensuring visibility tracking and optimization kept pace with the evolving AI search landscape.
The Results in Detail
Competitor Alternatives CTI: Citations Tripled
In the Competitor Alternatives CTI experiment — tracking how often Bitsight appears in AI answers when buyers search for alternatives to CrowdStrike, Mandiant, and other CTI platforms — Bitsight's citation count went from 725 at the May 26 execution to 2,115 at the June 23 execution, as competitor comparison pages and alternative listicles were deployed and indexed.
Overall visibility in this experiment grew from 40.1% in April to 48.7% by the June 23 run, with prompts growing alongside as more models were added to the experiment.
Discovery Core Product Categories: Sustained Above 70%
In the Discovery experiment — tracking Bitsight's visibility for buyers researching TPRM, EASM, security ratings, and CTI solutions — visibility stayed above 70% across six consecutive executions from May through June, peaking at 74.3% and averaging 71.4% on the final tracked run. Citations grew from 1,163 to 1,902 over the same window.
This sustained performance across all major LLMs demonstrates that Bitsight is firmly established as a top-recommended answer when buyers at the earliest stage of research ask AI assistants what the best cyber risk intelligence platform is.
Michael's Team Drove Additional Results on the Platform
Bitsight's internal team went further by generating additional content on the XLR8 AI platform beyond XLR8's recommendations. That content drove meaningful engagement and, in some cases, directly generated leads — demonstrating the compounding effect of a team actively engaged in their own AI search program.
Why This Matters for Enterprise Cybersecurity Brands
For a brand like Bitsight competing in a crowded cybersecurity market against well-funded competitors, AI search is becoming the primary way buyers build their initial vendor shortlists. Appearing at 48.7% in competitor alternative queries and maintaining 70%+ in product discovery queries means Bitsight is in front of more buyers, earlier in their decision process, than any traditional content or SEO investment could achieve at the same speed.
XLR8 AI's approach for Bitsight — combining competitor comparison content, category-specific product articles, page-level optimization, Reddit community signals, and continuous visibility experimentation — is a repeatable playbook for enterprise B2B brands that need to win the comparison conversation in AI search before buyers ever visit a review site or fill out a contact form.
