More people are asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews for local recommendations instead of typing a search query and clicking through blue links. “Find me a good coffee shop in Boise” gets answered directly now, often without the person ever visiting a website. That shift is why llms.txt exists, but it’s worth being honest about what it actually does before you spend time on it.

What it actually is

llms.txt is a plain Markdown file, placed at the root of a website (yourwebsite.com/llms.txt), that gives AI tools a clean, structured summary of what your business does, who it serves, and what your site contains, written specifically to be easy for a language model to parse, rather than written for human visitors or search engine crawlers.

It was proposed in 2024 as a lightweight standard, the same way robots.txt and sitemap.xml are standards: a small, predictable file in a predictable location that automated tools can check for.

How it’s different from robots.txt or a sitemap

robots.txt tells crawlers what they’re allowed to access. It’s permission, not information.

sitemap.xml lists every URL on your site so search engines can find them. It’s a map, not a description.

llms.txt actually describes your business in plain language: summarized, curated by you, and formatted for a language model to read quickly and use in a generated answer. It’s the only one of the three that’s actually about your business rather than about your site’s structure.

What goes into a good one

A solid llms.txt typically includes:

A one-paragraph summary of the business, what you do, who you serve
Your service area or location, stated plainly
What you offer, listed clearly rather than buried in marketing copy
Pricing, if you’re comfortable sharing it (AI tools can’t infer a number that isn’t stated anywhere)
A link list to your key pages

The tone should be direct and factual, closer to a spec sheet than an ad. A language model isn’t persuaded by adjectives; it’s looking for facts it can restate accurately.

Does it actually work? (the honest answer)

Here’s the part most articles about this skip: llms.txt is not yet a confirmed, universally-adopted standard the way robots.txt is. Some AI crawlers and tools reference it; others don’t yet, or use different signals entirely. Nobody, including us, can promise that having one guarantees your business gets mentioned by name the next time someone asks an AI tool for a recommendation.

What we can say: it costs nothing to have one, it can’t hurt, and if adoption continues to grow, which seems like the likely direction given how fast AI-assisted search is growing, you’re already there instead of playing catch-up. It’s a bet with a low cost and a real (if unproven) upside, not a guaranteed win.

How to get one

You can write one yourself. It’s a plain text file, no special tools required. Keep it under a page, write it like you’re briefing someone who’s never heard of your business, and put it at yoursite.com/llms.txt. Update it if your services or pricing change; a stale one that contradicts your actual site is worse than not having one.

Where we land

Every site we build includes an llms.txt file as part of the standard build, not because we’re certain it’ll drive a specific number of AI-referral customers, but because it’s a five-minute addition with no downside, and most of your competitors still don’t have one. If you want the rest of what’s included, see how it works.

What Is llms.txt, and Does Your Small Business Actually Need One?