You know robots.txt? That file that tells search crawlers what they can and can't access on your site? Some people are now proposing something similar for AI: llms.txt.
What llms.txt is trying to solve
AI systems are scraping the web and using that content to answer questions. But they're doing it blindly. They don't know what a website owner wants them to focus on, how the brand prefers to be described, or what the main products and services are.
The idea behind llms.txt is to give website owners a way to communicate directly with AI systems. A structured file that says: "Here's what we are, here's what matters most, here's how we'd like to be represented."
What goes in an llms.txt file
The standard is still emerging, but the general idea includes:
Brand information. Your official name, tagline, what you do in one sentence. This helps AI describe you consistently.
Key pages. Which URLs are most important? Your homepage, main product page, pricing page. This signals what AI should prioritize.
Preferred descriptions. How would you like to be categorized? "AI visibility tracking tool" vs "marketing analytics platform." Give AI the language you want it to use.
Contact and verification. Who to contact for questions, how to verify information about your brand.
Does it actually work?
Honestly? Not for AI visibility, as far as anyone can measure.
It's a proposed standard, not a universally adopted one. Google has said it does not use llms.txt in Search, including AI Overviews, and AI crawlers rarely request the file. No study has shown an effect on citations. Where llms.txt does get read is by coding agents and documentation tools, which fetch it on purpose to find the right pages quickly.
So adding it doesn't hurt, but it won't replace good content, clean HTML or schema markup.
Should you create one?
If you have 10 minutes, sure, with modest expectations. It's low effort, and genuinely useful if you publish docs or an API.
The file is simple. Create a text file called llms.txt in your root directory (so yoursite.com/llms.txt). Include your brand basics, key pages, and preferred descriptions. If you'd rather not start from scratch, you can use a free llms.txt generator that scans your sitemap and produces a spec-compliant file in seconds.
Even if AI systems don't read it, having this information clearly documented helps you think through your positioning.
The bigger picture
llms.txt is part of a broader shift: website owners trying to have more control over how AI represents them.
Right now, AI pulls from whatever it finds and synthesizes it however it wants. You don't get much say. Standards like llms.txt are an attempt to change that dynamic, even a little.
Whether it succeeds depends on whether AI companies decide to respect these signals. For now, it's worth watching and experimenting with, but don't expect it to be a silver bullet for AI visibility.
