The short version
- AI search optimization is the work of making your brand easy for AI assistants to find, understand and quote accurately.
- Assistants answer from what they learned in training and from pages they fetch live, so both your long-standing reputation and your current pages matter.
- AI crawlers such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot are documented as respecting robots.txt, so blocking them can keep your pages out of AI answers.
- Pages that answer the question in the first paragraph, in short sentences that stand alone, are easier for an assistant to quote.
- llms.txt is a proposed standard file that gives AI tools a plain map of a site; it is cheap to publish, but not every assistant reads it.
On this page
AI search optimization is making your brand easy for AI assistants to find, understand and quote correctly. In practice it means four things: let AI crawlers read your site, write pages that answer the question in their first paragraph, keep your facts identical everywhere they appear, and give machines a plain map of what you publish. Most of it is good SEO done carefully. A little of it is new.
How AI assistants find information about a brand
An assistant answers from two places. The first is what the model learned in training, a snapshot of the public web and other sources taken months or years before you ask. The second is live retrieval: for many questions, the assistant searches the web, fetches a few pages and writes its answer from them, often with links. Optimising for AI means being findable and clear in both.
What it means for you
What you can influence
What it means for you
What you can influence
What it means for you
What you can influence
Let AI crawlers read your site
AI companies run their own crawlers, and the major ones say they respect robots.txt. Some sites block them by default through a hosting setting or a security plugin, sometimes without anyone deciding to. If an assistant cannot fetch your pages, it will answer from whatever else it finds, which may be a two-year-old review or a competitor's comparison page.
# robots.txt: allow search and AI assistant crawlers
User-agent: *
Allow: /
Disallow: /account/
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: Claude-User
User-agent: PerplexityBot
User-agent: Google-Extended
Allow: /
Disallow: /account/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xmlWrite pages an assistant can quote
When an assistant writes from a page it fetched, it lifts the clearest statement it can find. A page that opens with three paragraphs of story before the answer gives it nothing to lift. A page that answers in its first sentence, then explains, gives it exactly what it needs and gives the human reader the same courtesy.
Hard to quote
- The answer sits below a long introduction
- Facts hidden inside images or sliders
- Sentences that only make sense with the one before
- Vague claims: "industry leading", "best in class"
- Different product names on different pages
Easy to quote
- The answer in the first paragraph
- Facts written as plain text in the HTML
- Short sentences that stand on their own
- Specifics: sizes, steps, names, dates
- One name and one description, used everywhere
Structured data helps machines read the page too. FAQ, product, organisation and article markup describe what a page is in a form any crawler understands. It is not a guarantee of being cited, but it removes guesswork. If your pages are shared as links, Open Graph tags and a proper link preview image help the human side of the same click.
Publish an llms.txt file
llms.txt is a proposed convention: a Markdown file at the root of your site that tells AI tools, in plain language, what the site is and where its most useful pages are. It is not an official standard and no assistant is obliged to read it. It takes an hour to write, though, and it forces you to describe your business in a few exact sentences, which is valuable on its own.
# Harbour Bakery
> A neighbourhood bakery at 2 Quay Street, open 7am to 3pm,
> Tuesday to Sunday. Sourdough, pastries and coffee.
## Key pages
- Menu: https://example.com/menu (breads, pastries and drinks)
- Visit: https://example.com/visit (address, hours, parking)
- Orders: https://example.com/orders (celebration cakes, 48 hours notice)
## Optional
- Journal: https://example.com/journal (recipes and seasonal news)Keep your facts identical everywhere
Assistants compare sources. If your site says you open at 7am, your Google Business profile says 8am and a directory says you closed in 2023, the answer will be hedged or wrong. Pick one name, one line describing what you do and one set of facts, then update every profile you control. Get your brand mentioned by ChatGPT covers the off-site side: reviews, comparisons and the places assistants look beyond your own pages.
- 1
Write a one-line description
What you are, for whom, and where. Use it word for word on your site, profiles and press pages.
- 2
List your core facts
Name, location, hours, products, founding year, contact. One source of truth, shared with anyone who edits a profile.
- 3
Audit your profiles
Google Business, social bios, directories, marketplaces and partner pages. Fix every mismatch.
- 4
Ask the assistants
Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google what they know about you. Note what is wrong and trace where it came from.
- 5
Repeat every quarter
Assistants change their sources and models. A short check every few months catches drift early.
How Gradiently approaches AI search
Gradiently's own Field Guide is written for people and assistants at once. Every article answers its title in the first paragraph and carries a short summary of sentences that are each true on their own, so an assistant can quote one without the rest. FAQs are published as FAQPage data. The site publishes an llms.txt and a full-text llms-full.txt (see gradiently.design/llms.txt), offers a Markdown copy of every guide article, and its robots.txt names the main AI crawlers and allows them on public pages.
There is a second route, too. Gradiently works inside ChatGPT, Claude and any assistant that supports remote MCP servers, so an assistant can search Marks and create designs directly rather than describing the product from memory. What is MCP explains how that connection works, and connect an AI assistant shows the setup.
Questions people ask
What is AI search optimization?
It is the work of making your brand easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity to find, understand and quote accurately, through crawler access, clear pages and consistent facts.
Is LLM SEO different from normal SEO?
Mostly it is the same work done carefully: crawlable pages, clear answers and good reputation. The differences are allowing AI crawlers, writing sentences that can be quoted alone and optionally publishing llms.txt.
Does llms.txt help with ChatGPT?
llms.txt is a proposed convention, and no assistant is obliged to read it. It is cheap to publish and makes your site easier for any tool that does read it to understand.
Should I block GPTBot in robots.txt?
Blocking AI crawlers can keep your pages out of AI answers, so most brands that want to be recommended allow them on public pages. Some companies use separate crawlers for training and for live answers, which you can treat differently.
How do I check what ChatGPT says about my brand?
Ask it directly, along with Claude, Perplexity and Google, using the questions your customers would ask. Note any wrong facts and trace them back to the page they came from.
Written by Gradiently
The team behind Gradiently, a design tool built around Marks: living gradients that make everything you design look like yours.
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