Analysis of B2B search engine use and AI tools in the SME sector for mechanical engineering and industrial plants

AI in B2B marketing: opportunities and challenges for companies

The digital landscape for business-to-business (B2B) companies, especially in technically demanding sectors such as mechanical engineering, industry and in large plant projects (e.g. high-distance warehouse, solar parks) in Germany, is subject to constant change. Understanding how potential customers and partners are looking for information and which tools you use is of crucial importance for marketing and business development strategies. This report analyzes the relative importance of mobile and desktop search questions in this specific B2B context, examines the market shares of the search engines Google and Bing with special consideration of the corporate environment and highlights the emerging role of AI-based search tools such as Microsoft Copilot, Chatgpt and Perplexity AI as well as their data sources for daily information.

Suitable for:

• Between 67% and 90% | B2B prefers the web search with AI tools instead of classic search engines

Mobile vs. desktop search in the German industrial and B2B sector

Global and German trends of internet use

Viewed globally, mobile internet use has overtaken desktop use in relation to the pure volume. Current data show that mobile devices are responsible for a large part of the global website traffic, with estimates for over 63 % for the beginning of 2025. This trend is also reflected in the general Internet access rate, in which mobile devices, in particular smartphones, have achieved almost universal distribution. In Germany, internet use is also high and increasing, from 87 % in 2019 to 92 % in 2023, with further growth potential. Around 64 % of all searches are carried out worldwide via mobile devices.

B2B-specific search behavior: The continued relevance of the desktop

Despite the global dominance of mobile devices, there is a more differentiated picture in the B2B area, especially in complex industrial sectors. Analyzes of B2B websites indicate that desktop computers still play a central role here, especially for detailed research and purchase decisions. The range of mobile use in the B2B area varies greatly-from less than 10 % mobile traffic in some analyzed B2B companies up to 60 % in others-the trend generally tends to go to desktop dominance. This is attributed to the fact that experts typically make B2B research and purchases during working hours where desktops or laptops are easily available.

Sectors such as B2B services and financial institutions continue to have a higher proportion of desktop traffic due to the type of their activities, partly with a ratio of 60/40 in favor of the desktop. In some B2B areas, the proportion of organic mobile traffic is only 15 %. Sistrix data confirm that B2B topics have a lower proportion of mobile searches (under 50 %) compared to other areas such as weather information (almost 80 %). Long-tail keywords, which are often used for specific B2B research, also show an above-average proportion of desktop searches.

The user behavior differs significantly between the devices. Desktop users tend to spend more time on websites (average 40 % longer; 996-1918 seconds vs. 704-775 seconds mobile), visit more pages per session (3.95 desktop vs. 2.67 mobile) and have lower bounce rates. This indicates a deeper commitment that is characteristic of complex B2B research.

A nuanced picture arises in the conversion rates. While mobile devices in e-commerce context can generate more web traffic and sometimes even more sales, desktops generally have higher conversion rates. The desktop is preferred for specific, high -quality, high -quality or complex transactions, such as booking travel (in contrast to pure browsing). This suggests that complex B2B buying decisions that require a detailed examination are more likely to be completed on the desktop.

Why the German B2B market is the focus of mechanical engineering and industrial projects

The mechanical engineering, industrial plants and large -scale sector are characterized by complex products and services, detailed technical specifications and considerable investments. These characteristics fit exactly with the observed B2B patterns. Research, comparison and purchase decisions are most likely to take place on desktop devices during business hours. The need to analyze technical data sheets, CAD files or extensive project descriptions clearly favors the use of larger screens and more powerful devices.

The observed discrepancy between the general trend towards mobile use and the specific B2B behavior leads to an important knowledge: Although global internet trends point strongly towards mobile, the specific context of the German industrial B2B sector requires a strong focus on the desktop user experience. This applies in particular to activities in the middle to late funnel that include detailed research and conversions. This underlines the preference for desktop in complex research and transactions, supported by metrics such as length of stay and conversion rates. At the same time, mobile optimization may not be neglected due to Google's mobile-first indexing, which is decisive for visibility in search results. B2B markers in this sector are therefore faced with the challenge of finding a balance: mobile optimization for findability and ranking, but desktop optimization for commitment and conversion.

A dual optimization strategy

For companies in the field of mechanical engineering and large plant construction, a dual strategy for website optimization is essential:

• Mobile optimization: This is fundamental to SEO visibility due to the mobile-first indexing of Google. Fast loading times, responsive design and simple navigation are crucial for the first information intake. Contents must be legible and accessible on smaller screens.
• Desktop optimization: This is critical of user engagement and conversion. The focus should be on the provision of comprehensive information, detailed specifications, simple comparison tools, downloadable resources (PDFs, CAD files) and clear action requests (calls-to-action) that are tailored to complex decision-making processes. The user experience must satisfy the needs of profound research.
• Content strategy: Contents should cover both initial mobile search queries (often shorter, wider) and the deeper research needs on the desktop (longer, more specific long-tail keywords).

Market shares of Google vs. Bing in Germany

Total market shares in Germany (all devices)

Google claims an overwhelming dominance on the German search engine market as a whole. Bing, Microsoft's search engine, keeps second place with a noticeable share.

Search engine market shares in Germany (all devices, as of March 2025)

Search engine market shares in Germany (all devices, as of March 2025)-Image: Xpert.digital

In the German search engine market, Google clearly runs with a market share of 87.03 %, followed by Bing with 6.23 %. Other important providers are Yandex with 2.52 %, Duckduckgo with 1.42 %, Yahoo! With 1.40 % and ecosia with 1.01 %. The data is based on Statcounter Global Stats and refer to all devices (as of March 2025).

These numbers confirm Google's supremacy, but also show that Bing is the clear runner -up. The market share of Bing in Germany is above the global average of around 3-4 % and is also higher than in some other major European markets such as Great Britain (approx. 3.3 %). Germany is therefore a comparatively strong market for Bing. It is also noteworthy that the search engine Ecosia in Germany has its highest market share worldwide.

Desktop market shares: Bing's relevance in the company context

The analysis of the pure desktop search engine market shares in Germany reveals a significantly different picture and confirms the presumption of a higher relevance of Bing in the corporate environment.

Desktop search engine market shares in Germany (as of March 2025)

Desktop search engine market shares in Germany (as of March 2025)-Image: Xpert.digital

The market share of the desktop search engines in Germany in March 2025 is distributed as follows: Google leads significantly with 73.90 %, followed by Bing with 16.70 %. Behind it are Yahoo! With 3.55 %, Duckduckgo with 2.19 %, Yandex with 1.76 %and ecosia with 1.12 %. Source: Statcounter Global Stats.

The breakdown according to Hosts confirms Bing's share of approx. 16.7 % on the desktop.

The comparison of the two tables makes it clear: Bings market share on desktop devices (~ 16.7 %) is almost three times as high as its overall market share (~ 6.2 %). This significant difference can be largely explained by the “Microsoft Ecosystem Effect”:

• Microsoft Windows is the dominant operating system in German companies. Estimates assume 96-97 %.
• Microsoft Bing is the standard search engine in the Microsoft Edge browser and integrated into the Windows search.
• Employees in companies who use Windows PCs provided by the company therefore come into contact and use it for desktop searches more frequently-consciously or unconsciously.

This creates a kind of “captive audience” in the corporate environment. The data thus quantifiable the strength of bing on the desktop in the German corporate context. Although Google is also a leader here, Bings portion of around 17 % represents a substantial user base. This is particularly relevant because, as explained in the previous section, desktop use in the B2B environment for deeper research and decisions is precalent. Bing's desktop content in Germany is also significantly higher than its global desktop content (approx. 11-12 %), which underlines the special meaning of the Microsoft ecosystem in this country. Companies that ignore bing risk almost a fifth of the potential desktop search market in this specific environment.

With regard to the target group, bing users are sometimes characterized as a little older, with potentially higher incomes and possibly fewer technology affin (or simply users of the default settings). In the B2B context, however, the decisive factor is the standard setting in the corporate IT. A significant part of the desktop seekers worldwide (44 million) even uses Bing, and some studies indicate that managers could partially prefer Bing.

Strategic considerations for search engine marketing (SEM) and SEO

In view of the significant desktop market share of Bing in the relevant corporate environment, a dual search engine strategy for SEM (paid search) and SEO (organic search) for comprehensive market coverage is urgently recommended:

• Sea: Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) often has lower costs per click (CPC) compared to Google Ads. This can potentially offer a better return on investment (ROI) for achieving the B2B desktop target group. Microsoft Advertising also offers integration options with platforms such as LinkedIn for targeted targeting.
• SEO: While Google's algorithm focuses on most optimization efforts, there are specific SEO considerations for Bing. Bing may place different importance on factors such as keywords in titles and URLs, social signals or official domain types (.com, .org etc.). Optimization for both search engines, with a priority on Google due to the total volume, is ideal. Contents that are optimized for Google usually also work well on Bing, but smaller adjustments can bring additional profits.

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AI search tools in Marketing & Business Development

Distribution and applications (Copilot, Chatgpt, Perplexity)

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly being used in specific business processes, beyond general consumer use. This also applies to marketing and business development in the B2B area. Estimates of the B2B search engine market in the USA see AI tools such as chatt and perplexity among the top 10 of the “search engines” used by B2B professionals.

• Microsoft Copilot: is used intensively within the Microsoft ecosystem. Applications include the summary of information from various data sources (including internal SharePoint), the optimization of sales processes, the improvement of productivity (meeting summary, document formatting, reporting), support for research (e.g. an EY tax agent that accesses internal and external documents) and the acceleration of software development (via github Copilot). The deep integration in Microsoft 365 makes Copilot an obvious choice for companies that already use Microsoft products.
• Chatgpt: is used for the creation of content (marketing materials, blogs), market research (analysis of buyer profiles), brainstorming, summaries and data processing/processing (caution is required). Its conversational nature is well suited for designing communication means or exploring ideas.
• Perplexity AI: positions itself as a “answer machine” (Answer Engine), ideal for research, factual testing and the preserved concealed summaries with sources. Useful for market research, competitive analyzes, the understanding of complex topics and the current information. Specific functions such as “focus modes” (e.g. academic, economy) enable targeted searches, while “Pro Search” allows deeper research. File uploads enable the analysis of specific documents. New functions aim at specific industries such as finance or potentially e-commerce checkout processes. Perplexity is actively aimed at corporate use with “Enterprise Pro”, which emphasizes security and data protection and cooperates in Germany with companies such as Deutsche Telekom.

Relevance in the industrial sector: Special AI copilots are developed for industrial plants. They provide technicians with immediate answers to machine status, error codes and maintenance procedures by querying documentation and master data. This indicates the potential that AI tools are integrated deep into industrial B2B work processes, far beyond marketing and sales.

Data sources for real -time information: functionality in comparison

Although all three tools aim to provide current information, your approaches and data sources differ considerably:

• Microsoft Copilot:
  • Core mechanism: strongly dependent on the Microsoft ecosystem. Use Bing Search (in particular Bing Custom Search, limited to configured domains or wider websites, if activated) for real-time data from the public web.
  • Internal data access: Integrates deeply with Microsoft Graph and the Semantic Index in order to access and understand organizational data within Microsoft 365 (SharePoint, Outlook, teams, etc.), with user rights being respected.
  • Indexing process: Used crawlers like Bing to discover and index web content. Bing's cache can sometimes keep data, even after being made privately that are potentially accessible to copilot.
  • Data flow: user request -> Moderation/optimization -> Bing Custom Search/Microsoft Graph -> Grounding/Summary -> Answer.
• Chatgpt:
  • Core mechanism: Primarily uses its pre-trained data (with a knowledge chicken day, e.g. October 2023 for GPT-4O), but integrates real-time website functions.
  • Web search: works with third-party search engines. Bing is explicitly called and used for the “Browse with Bing” function, which is available for plus/enterprise users. Chatgpt formulates user inquiries and sends them to these providers.
  • Data sources: Calls information from websites that are returned by the search partners and delivers quotes/left. It can process text from HTML, but may have difficulties with complex formats such as PDFs without special functions.
  • Indexing: relies on the indices of his search partners (like Bing). It does not maintain its own comprehensive real-time webindex such as a traditional search engine, but uses external indices.
• Perplexity AI:
  • Core mechanism: positions itself as a “answer machine” that searches the Internet in real time.
  • Indexing: indicates to use your own search index, separated from Google/Bing, which focuses on relevant/reliable sources (“Head of the Distribution Curve”) instead of the long tail. It attaches great importance to high -quality scraping and parsing to extract relevant paragraphs for your LLMs. It uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to access documents from its index. The index is even more often updated daily or for certain data types.
  • Data sources: searches for authoritative sources such as articles, websites, journals, scientific work etc. provides quotes for verification.
  • Search process: Use LLMS (own fine-tuned models and models of third-party providers such as GPT-4, Claude 3) to understand inquiries, leads several searches (“Pro Search”), calls relevant content from his index and synthesized answers.

The different architectures of these tools imply to the scope, depth, speed and potential distortions of the information, each of which is accessed from the web. Copilot is closely bound to Bing and Microsoft data. Chatgpt acts as a powerful voice model that calls external search partners (including bing) if necessary. Perplexity strives to be an independent answer machine with its own real-time index and strong focus on source verification.

SEO strategies for better visibility in AI-based platforms-for marketing and business development strategies

• Research: Perplexity is suitable for quick, cited answers and exploration of different sources. Chatgpt is good for wider brainstorming and conversational exploration. Copilot is ideal for research that is deeply integrated into internal company data (when using Microsoft 365).
• Content creation: Chatgpt or Copilot can be used to design content, summarize documents or generate marketing texts. Perplexity pages can be used to convert research into divisible content formats.
• SEO/Visibility: Contents that are optimized for Bing can benefit secondarily from appearing in copilot results. Contents that are optimized for large search engines will probably be found via the partners of Chatgpt's browsing function. Ensuring that content is crawlable, authoritative and up -to -date is crucial for the visibility in the index of perplexity.
• Sales Enablement: Copilot can optimize processes by summarizing customer interactions or internal data. Chatgpt/perplexity can be used for quick research into potential customers or markets.
• Tool selection: The choice depends on the specific task, the need for source verification, integration into existing work processes (in particular the Microsoft ecosystem for Copilot) and the budget (pro-versions offer more functions).

Suitable for:

• Development of the Microsoft search engines and their forerunners before Bing

Strategic recommendations: Why Bing in the German B2B sector is more important than you think

The analysis of search engine use and the role of AI tools in the German B2B sector for mechanical engineering and industrial plants leads to several central findings:

• Desktop remains crucial: Despite the general dominance of mobile devices, desktop search for research and conversion in complex industrial B2B areas in Germany is still of great relevance. A dual optimization strategy for mobile visibility and desktop engagement is necessary.
• Bing's underestimated role: Microsoft Bing holds a significant desktop market share of around 17 % in German corporate environments due to the “Microsoft Ecosystem Effects”. This makes Bing an important channel next to the market leader Google, which must not be ignored.
• AI tools on the rise: AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot, Chatgpt and Perplexity AI are increasingly used in the B2B area for efficiency increases. However, they access real-time data in different ways: Copilot about Bing and Microsoft Graph, Chatgt via external search partner (including bing) and perplexity via their own real-time index and web crawling.

Based on these findings, the following recommendations for action for marketing and business development managers in German mechanical engineering companies and plant engineering are created:

• Website strategy (dual optimization): Implement a two-track approach. Prioritize mobile-friendliness and speed for SEO visibility (mobile-first indexing). At the same time, optimize the desktop user experience for profound commitment, the provision of complex information and the support of conversion processes.
• Search engine strategy (Google & Bing): Allocate budget and resources for Google and for Bing in the areas of SEM and SEO. Specifically aim at desktop users with bing campaigns in order to achieve the considerable user base in companies. Continuously monitor the performance on both platforms.
• Integration of AI tools: Evaluate the use of Copilot (especially with strong use of Microsoft 365), chatt and perplexity for specific tasks in marketing and business development (e.g. research, content generation, summaries, sales support). Understand their different data procurement mechanisms in order to select the right tool for the respective task and to be aware of potential restrictions or distortions.
• Content optimization for AI: Make sure that website content is correct, current, authoritative (according to Eeat principles), are easy to structured and easy to crawl. This maximizes visibility not only in traditional search engines, but also in AI response machines such as perplexity and potentially in the search functions of Copilot and Chatgpt.
• Continuous observation: the landscape of the search and AI is developing rapidly. Continuously monitor market share trends, the skills of AI tools and changes in user behavior in order to be able to adapt strategies agile.

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