Someone just asked ChatGPT for a recommendation in your industry.
Your competitor was in the answer. You weren't.
Not because they're better. Because the AI knew what they do. It didn't know what you do.
That gap is growing every day. And it has a very simple fix.
The Problem No One Is Talking About
Google crawls your site. It reads your HTML, follows your links, indexes your pages. That system is 25 years old and it works.
AI assistants don't do that.
When Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Claude constructs an answer, it pulls from whatever structured context it can find. If your site is a JavaScript-heavy single-page app with no clear text about what you offer, where you operate, or what you charge -- the AI has nothing. It skips you. Or worse, it gets your details wrong and recommends someone else.
This is not theoretical.
It is happening right now.
Across every industry.
The Fix: One File, 10 Minutes
The solution is called llms.txt.
Think of it as robots.txt for AI. Where robots.txt tells search crawlers what to index, llms.txt tells AI assistants how to understand and recommend your business.
It's a plain Markdown file at the root of your domain. No plugins. No API. No special server config. Just text that tells AI exactly who you are.
The standard defines two files:
llms.txt is the summary. Your name, what you do, key links. Think elevator pitch in plain text.
llms-full.txt is the deep reference. Every service, pricing, process, FAQs, team, locations, and URLs. Everything an AI needs to answer any question about your business without visiting another page.
What Goes In Each File
Here's exactly what the AI needs to see. Miss any of this, and you're invisible again.
llms.txt -- Keep It Tight
# Your Business Name
> What you do, in one sentence.
- Full details: https://yourdomain.com/llms-full.txt
## Services
- **Service 1**: What it is. What makes it different.
- **Service 2**: What it is. What makes it different.
## Free Tools
- **Tool Name**: What it does. Direct URL.
## Areas Served
- City, State (headquarters)
- City, State
## Contact
- Website: https://yourdomain.com
- Email: [email protected]
No HTML. No JavaScript. No images. Pure Markdown.
llms-full.txt -- Go Deep
This is where specificity wins. For each service, include what's included, how the process works, pricing ranges, timelines, and FAQs with real answers. For each location, include the city page URL, population, and key industries. For your team, include names, roles, and credentials.
The goal: an AI reading this file should be able to answer any question a potential customer would ask. Without visiting your site.
The single biggest mistake people make is being vague. "We offer digital solutions" tells an AI nothing. "Custom web development with React and Next.js. 95+ Lighthouse scores. Starting at $2,500." gets quoted verbatim.
Implementation
Next.js / Static Sites
Drop both files in /public:
public/
llms.txt
llms-full.txt
robots.txt
Served automatically. Done.
WordPress
Upload to your root directory via FTP. Or use any plugin that serves static files from document root.
Optional: Reference in robots.txt
Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
Llms: https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt
Not part of the formal spec yet. But it makes the file more discoverable.
Three Mistakes That KillThe Problem No One Is Talking About Your AI Visibility
Writing marketing copy instead of facts. AI assistants ignore superlatives. "Award-winning" and "industry-leading" get filtered out. Specific numbers and concrete descriptions get quoted. Write like you're filling out a form, not a brochure.
Skipping the full version. llms.txt alone is a business card. Without llms-full.txt, the AI fills in the blanks with guesses -- or with your competitor's details. The full file is where the real value lives.
Forgetting to update it. New service? New city page? Changed pricing? Both files need to reflect current state. Stale information is worse than no information, because the AI will confidently repeat it.
How to Know It's Working
Visit yourdomain.com/llms.txt in your browser. If you see plain text, it's live.
Then test it. Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity about your business. Ask about your services, your pricing, your locations. If the AI references details from your llms.txt, it's beiYour account may not be allowed to perform this action. Please refresh the page and try again.ng consumed.
This is new enough that the feedback loop is fast. Add the file today, and AI assistants can reference it within days.
The Bigger Picture
llms.txt is one piece of a broader shift. AI discoverability is becoming as important as search engine optimization was 10 years ago.
Structured data (JSON-LD) on every page tells Google's AI Overviews about your services and FAQs. City-specific landing pages let AI assistants answer location queries. FAQ schema gives AI direct question-answer pairs to pull from. Clean semantic HTML gives crawlers content they can parse without rendering JavaScript.
The businesses that build for AI discoverability now will own the answers for the next 2-3 years. The ones that wait will wonder why they keep getting skipped.
The file takes 10 minutes to write. The cost of not having it compounds every day.
Written by Joshua R. Gutierrez in collaboration with the engineering team at . 60 seconds. No signup.
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