llms.txt
llms.txt is a proposed standard file at a website's root that gives AI crawlers a clean, curated summary of the site's most important content.
What it actually means
Just as robots.txt tells search crawlers where they may go, llms.txt — a markdown file served at yoursite.com/llms.txt — tells AI systems what your site is about and which pages matter most. The emerging standard exists because language models digest sprawling, navigation-heavy websites poorly; a concise, curated index of your key pages, offers, and facts gives them an authoritative version to draw from instead of whatever fragments they happen to crawl. Adoption is early and no engine guarantees it reads the file, but it costs minutes to create, and it is a bet on the growing share of customers whose first impression of you is an AI's summary.
For a local business, llms.txt is a one-page cheat sheet handed to every AI: what you do, where you serve, what you charge, how to book — so the chatbot describing you to a customer gets it right.
Related terms
Generative engine optimization is the practice of making your content likely to be cited in AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT and Google.
Answer engine optimization structures your content so AI assistants, voice search, and featured snippets can extract direct answers from it.
AI Overviews are Google's AI-generated answers at the top of search results, summarizing sources before any traditional links appear.
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