Positive and Fast Growth Advisors have launched an AI-powered Message Market Fit service in the UK, alongside research suggesting 68% of funded UK startups are difficult for AI engines to understand.
The firms analysed publicly available information from 370 funded UK startups and found an average messaging clarity score of 45.5 out of 75, or just over 60% of the total possible score. No startup in the sample scored above 85%, and weak clarity appeared across funding stages from pre-seed to Series B and beyond.
The service targets B2B startups and focuses on how clearly companies explain their products and value to AI assistants and human buyers. Positive is based in London, while Fast Growth Advisors was founded in France and has worked on message analysis for post-funding B2B startups.
The findings reflect a shift in how software buyers begin supplier research. Citing a G2 study, the firms said 51% of B2B software buyers now start purchase research in an AI assistant more often than in a search engine, while 53% said AI search makes research more productive.
That shift means unclear wording on company websites and other public materials may now affect whether a startup appears in early buyer research at all. The same study found that one in three buyers went on to purchase from a vendor they had not heard of before.
How it works
The Message Market Fit method uses AI to assess whether a startup's marketing claims match customer needs and whether those claims are expressed clearly enough for AI tools to interpret. The UK launch builds on an earlier review of 369 funded French startups.
Alongside the broader market report, the partnership is offering tailored audits for individual companies. These reviews are designed to identify positioning problems in existing messaging and suggest ways to align it more closely with customer needs.
The partners argue this replaces subjective judgement with a more measurable approach. The service is also intended to help startups test their messaging before spending heavily on communications and demand-generation campaigns.
Paul Maher, Founder of Positive, outlined the commercial case for the service.
"Credibility is about consistency. Unsuccessful awareness campaigns built on unclear messaging cost the same as those that excel. The key is sharper differentiators that mirror the fast-changing requirements of buyers. Before MMF, comms professionals relied on gut feel. There was no objective gauge of message-market fit. Now, and for free, we can objectively audit messaging before committing to expensive marketing communications," Maher said.
UK test case
The UK was chosen as the first market for the English-language version of the service because of its large startup ecosystem. Fast Growth Advisors said one question raised by its earlier work in France was whether poor message clarity was a local issue or a broader European one.
Hervé Dhélin, Founder of Fast Growth Advisors, said the UK was the right market to test that question.
"When we measured the booming French startup scene, the question we heard most from investors and founders alike was: 'Is this solely a French, or a European, startup problem?' Europe's largest ecosystem, the UK, is the right place to find out," Dhélin said.
The founders of the two firms have worked together before. Maher and Dhélin previously held senior roles at Mercury Interactive, the software company Hewlett-Packard acquired for $4.6 billion.
The research adds to a growing body of work around AI visibility as a commercial issue for software companies. For many startups, search rankings once shaped the first stage of discovery. The firms behind the new service assume the same pressure is now shifting toward language AI systems can parse, rank, and repeat accurately.
For early-stage and growth-stage businesses alike, the implication is that messaging may no longer be judged only by how it reads to an investor, journalist or prospective customer. It may also be judged on whether an AI assistant can understand it well enough to include it in the first round of buying research.