AI Discovery Files Directory: The First Verified Registry of AI-Visible Websites

Hundreds of thousands of websites now serve an llms.txt file. GitHub directories track them. Blog posts list them. But until today, nobody checked whether any of those files actually work.

The AI Discovery Files Directory is live. It's the first verified registry of websites implementing AI discovery files, and it doesn't take your word for it. It checks for all 10 file types, scores each domain on how many are present, verifies domain ownership, and publishes the results.

Five websites have been verified so far, all scoring 10/10 with Platinum status. The directory is open for submissions from any business, in any industry, anywhere in the world.

Why a Verified Directory Matters Right Now

The shift from traditional search to AI-powered discovery isn't coming. It's here. Gartner predicted a 25% drop in traditional search volume by 2026, and the numbers are tracking. ChatGPT has 810 million daily users. Google AI Overviews reach over a billion. When someone asks an AI to recommend a business, that AI needs structured data to work with.

Jeremy Howard, who created the llms.txt specification at Answer.AI, put it simply:

"Today websites are not just used to provide information to people, but they are also used to provide information to large language models."

Jeremy Howard, Answer.AI

I remember reading that line when the proposal first dropped in September 2024 and thinking: yes, but who's going to make sure people do it properly? Because the web has a long history of taking good ideas and implementing them badly. Meta keywords, structured data spam, thin content farms. Every standard gets gamed the moment it gains traction.

That's exactly what's happening with llms.txt. We wrote about this in detail: two major studies found llms.txt has zero measurable impact, and neither bothered to check what was inside the files they tested. Most were auto-generated URL dumps. Of course they didn't work.

The directory gives businesses a public, verified listing that shows exactly which files they've implemented. Combined with the AI Visibility Checker (which goes deeper, actually reading your files, evaluating their quality, and running a live ChatGPT snapshot of what AI says about your business), you've got a complete picture: what you've built, and whether it's working.

What the Directory Actually Does

You submit a domain. That's it. The directory handles the rest.

Registration takes seconds with Google SSO. Once you supply your domain, the system goes off and does the work: it fetches all 10 AI discovery file types, captures a screenshot of your website, pulls your business description from the files themselves, and calculates a score based on what it finds.

The 10 files it checks cover every aspect of your AI identity:

The 10 AI Discovery File Specifications (v1.1.0)

File	Purpose
llms.txt	Core business identity for LLMs
llm.txt	301 redirect to llms.txt (compatibility)
llms.html	Human-readable version with Schema.org markup
ai.txt	AI usage permissions and restrictions
ai.json	Machine-parseable AI interaction guidance
identity.json	Canonical business identity data
brand.txt	Brand naming conventions and rules
faq-ai.txt	Structured Q&A pairs for AI citation
developer-ai.txt	Technical context for APIs and platforms
robots-ai.txt	AI crawler-specific access directives

Domain ownership is verified the same way Google Search Console does it: you place a text file with a unique verification code in your website root. No DNS changes, no email confirmations. Quick, reliable, and impossible to fake.

Each verified listing gets its own category, automatically assigned by AI based on the business description. Fourteen industry categories are live, from Digital Agency and Professional Services to Healthcare, Trades & Construction, and Finance & Insurance.

Verified Scores, Not Self-Reported Claims

This is the bit that matters. Other directories (and there are a few popping up) simply list websites that have an llms.txt file. Found the file? Listed. Job done.

The AI Discovery Files Directory does something different. It checks for all 10 file types, not just one. Your score out of 10 is based on how many files are detected, and the directory assigns a tier: Platinum (10/10), Gold, Silver, or Bronze. It's a presence check across the full specification, verified by the system rather than self-reported.

Carolyn Shelby, Principal SEO at Yoast, has been saying this about llms.txt for months:

"Llms.txt isn't like robots.txt at all. It's more like a curated sitemap.xml that includes only the very best content designed specifically for AI comprehension and citation."

Carolyn Shelby, Search Engine Land

She's right. And that's where the AI Visibility Checker comes in. The directory tells you which files exist. The Checker actually reads them, evaluates their quality, flags syntax errors and clarity issues, and runs a live AI Snapshot showing what ChatGPT says about your business when asked. It's the difference between knowing you have the files and knowing they're doing their job.

A Platinum directory listing proves you've implemented all 10 files. The AI Visibility Checker proves they're worth reading.

When we checked 100 UK small businesses in ChatGPT, only 3 had any AI discovery files at all. The average visibility score was 31 out of 100. There's a massive gap between knowing AI discovery files exist and actually implementing them properly. Our AI Discovery File Adoption Research quantifies this: 93.5% of the world's top websites have no AI Discovery File at all, and 56% of those that do fail validation. The directory makes that gap visible.

What You Get With a Listing

Every verified site gets a dedicated profile page on the directory. It's not a line in a spreadsheet. It's a full, public page that shows:

• Your AI Visibility Score with a visual breakdown (files found, attributed, missing)
• Business details pulled from your discovery files: name, description, services, contact
• Category and location automatically assigned by AI
• A live screenshot of your website
• A dofollow backlink to your site (yes, real link equity)
• Tier badge showing Platinum, Gold, Silver, or Bronze status

You can edit the auto-generated description or keep the one pulled from your files. Entirely up to you.

The dashboard gives you an overview of all your listings (you can add as many domains as you own), their scores, tiers, and verification status. Quick links to submit new sites, access the Quick Start Guide, or update your account settings.

One feature people have been asking about: embed badges. You can grab a snippet of code (HTML, Markdown, or BBCode) to display your AI Visibility score on your own website. Three themes (Dark, Light, Glass) and two sizes (Standard, Compact). The badge links back to your directory listing, so visitors can see the full breakdown.

Who's Already Using AI Discovery Files

The adoption curve has been steep. When Jeremy Howard proposed llms.txt in September 2024, a handful of early adopters picked it up. By late 2024, documentation platform Mintlify enabled automatic llms.txt generation for every site it hosts, adding thousands of developer docs to the llms.txt adoption list overnight.

Today, the list of adopters reads like a tech industry who's who: Anthropic, Cloudflare, Stripe, Cursor, Perplexity, Vercel, Supabase, Zapier, Docker, HubSpot, Shopify, NVIDIA, Coinbase. BuiltWith tracked over 844,000 implementations by late 2025, though most are auto-generated URL dumps from WordPress plugins.

The tooling is catching up fast. Yoast launched the first llms.txt generator built into an SEO plugin. Wix rolled out a native AI Visibility Overview with llms.txt management. Cloudflare's AI Index generates the file automatically for hosted sites. These aren't fringe experiments. They're major platforms building AI discovery into their core products.

But here's the thing most of these adopters have in common: they're tech companies building for developers. The businesses that need AI discovery files most are the ones least likely to know they exist. The local solicitor. The estate agent. The plumber with a WordPress site. The directory is built for them just as much as it's built for Stripe.

How to Get Your Site Listed

Three steps. No technical background required.

Step 1: Create your AI discovery files. The specifications are published in full at AI Visibility, with a Quick Start Guide that breaks implementation into three tiers: Essential (2 files), Recommended (6 files), and Complete (10 files). WordPress users can install the free AI Discovery Files plugin and generate all 10 files from the dashboard. Start with llms.txt and ai.txt. Add the rest as you go.

Step 2: Check the quality of your files. Run your domain through the AI Visibility Checker at 365i. It doesn't just detect your files; it reads them, evaluates their quality, flags issues, and runs a live AI Snapshot showing what ChatGPT actually says about your business. Having the files is step one. Making sure they work is step two.

Step 3: Submit to the directory. Head to ai-visibility.org.uk, sign in with Google, and submit your domain. The directory does the rest: fetches your files, captures a screenshot, scores your implementation, and publishes your listing once ownership is verified.

If creating the files yourself feels like too much, 365i offers a Complete AI Identity Setup service that handles everything: writing all 10 files, implementing them on your site, and getting you verified in the directory. Our AI Visibility service covers the ongoing monitoring and updates too.

We covered what happens when you don't have these files in our piece on what AI visibility actually means. Short version: AI either guesses about your business or ignores it entirely. Neither is good.

What's Coming Next

The directory launched with five verified sites. That number will grow quickly. We're already seeing submissions from businesses across the UK and beyond. As more sites implement AI discovery files (and the tooling keeps getting easier), the directory becomes a real public record of which businesses have taken AI visibility seriously.

Scores are re-checked automatically every quarter, and you can trigger a manual re-check from your dashboard at any time. The verification badge updates dynamically too, so it always reflects your current score. Planned additions include a public API. The specifications themselves will continue to evolve as AI systems mature and new use cases emerge.

For now, the question is simple: waiting for AI discovery files to become "official" isn't a strategy. The businesses getting listed today are building their AI identity while competitors are still debating whether it matters.

It matters. And now there's a directory that proves it.

Frequently Asked Questions