The foundational playbook on analyst relations in 2026. Gartner, Forrester, IDC, the Tier 2, the boutique tier — what AR is, who runs it, what it costs, and the new motion coordinated with PR and GEO.
B2B PR operates differently from B2C PR — sophisticated audiences, long purchase cycles, collective decision-making, and peer endorsement infrastructure. The four structural differences, the eight operational foundations, and the strong B2B firms.
S&P 451 Research: brand fragmented, citation followed. Voice of the Enterprise methodology, the integration story, and the 59.7 EPR Analyst Visibility Index score.
ISG: the Provider Lens authority. Michael Connors at the top, 64.1 on the EPR Analyst Visibility Index, and the AI engine citation share across all five engines.
How Phil Fersht beat the institutions. HFS Horizons methodology, the named-analyst playbook, 68.4 on the EPR Analyst Visibility Index — the punch-above-weight case.
IDC: 82.3 — the citation floor for tech analyst authority. MarketScape and Forecast methodology, Crawford Del Prete leadership, AI engine citation across five engines.
Forrester: 87.6 and the Wave that still sets the bar. George Colony leadership, the methodology that defined the category, AI engine citation across five engines.
Gartner firm profile 2026 — Magic Quadrant methodology, Eugene Hall leadership, 94.2 EPR Analyst Visibility Index score, and AI engine citation share across the five engines.
Engine-by-engine citation share for Gartner, Forrester, IDC, HFS, ISG, and S&P 451 across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews.
The 2026 EPR Analyst Visibility Index scores Gartner, Forrester, IDC, HFS, ISG, and S&P 451 on how AI engines cite them across 120 prompts and five engines.