Can a mid-sized B2B SaaS get into AI answers ahead of Microsoft, SAP and TOTVS?
Yes, and it took Milldesk six months. The B2B SaaS for IT service desk went from 0.5% to 12.5% of the AI answers in its category between April and August 2026. By July it was already ahead of Atlassian, Freshworks, Microsoft, TOTVS, SAP and Intercom, and level with Movidesk. The work was five articles a month, two backlinks a month, a presence in the sector's technical communities and a full technical rebuild, run for six months without stopping.
The situation
Milldesk is an established B2B SaaS for IT service desk. Strong product, real market presence. And, in April, last place on the competitor panel we track. When someone asked an AI assistant which service desk to use, Milldesk showed up in 1% of the answers. Zendesk showed up in 55%.
That gap is the whole problem with treating AI search as a future concern. Buyers were already asking, and the answer already existed. It just did not include them.
What we did
One plan, run for six months without interruption: five articles a month on the searches with the most impressions (content strategy), two authority backlinks a month (link building), a presence in the IT communities the models actually read (community seeding), and a full technical rebuild of the site: schema, internal linking, and citation structure on the pages worth citing.
Nothing here is exotic. What made it work was that none of it stopped.
The numbers
| What we measured | Result | Window | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share of AI answers in the category | 0.5% → 12.5% | Apr–Aug 2026 | Amplitude, 11-competitor panel |
| AI visibility index | 14 → 30 | Feb–Jul 2026 | Semrush AI Visibility |
| Brand mentions inside AI answers, per month | 1 → 20 | Feb–Jul 2026 | Semrush + Amplitude |
| Positive sentiment, across 517 audited answers | 100% | Aug 2026 | Amplitude |
| Search impressions, average position 10.7 | 622K | Feb 1 – Jul 30, 2026 | Google Search Console |
| Keywords ranking on page one | 230+ | Aug 2026 | Google Search Console |
What happened
In July Milldesk was in 9.5% of the AI answers in its category, ahead of Atlassian, Freshworks, Microsoft, TOTVS, SAP and Intercom, and level with Movidesk, its direct competitor. In August it reached 12.5%. Only Zendesk, at 18% in July, stays out of reach in the short term. Semrush's AI visibility score rose from 14 to 30, and brand mentions inside the answers went from one a month to twenty.
On traditional search, the same six months produced 622,000 impressions and an average position of 10.7, with more than 230 keywords on page one. The contract was renewed with no gap between semesters.
Presence in AI answers is not inventory. When the publishing rhythm wavered in May, monthly mentions fell from 14 to 8, and recovered in June. The models answer with what is being said now.
