Making your business visible to AI search engines, chatbots, and assistants.
The unedited post-launch conversation between Mark McNeece and Sean Hamilton about the Lockerfella build. Trust, area pages, AI Discovery Files, prices, and the locksmith version of mission control. The primary source behind the case study.
Sean Hamilton wanted a website that "looked proper". He didn't ask for schema, AI Discovery Files, or 18 unique area pages. He didn't need to. Inside the Lockerfella build, the case study that turned a one-line brief into a 100/100/100/100 PageSpeed locksmith site cited in AI search within ten days of launch.
Ask ChatGPT about your business right now. Is the answer right? For 97 out of 100 UK businesses, it's not. The free AI Discovery Files WordPress plugin lets you tell AI systems who you are, what to call you, how your brand sounds, and what they're allowed to do with your content. Here's every feature, with screenshots.
99.7% of UK websites are invisible to ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. I built a free WordPress plugin that fixes that in five minutes. It generates all 10 AI discovery files from your dashboard, with zero coding and zero performance impact. Here's what it does and why your site needs it.
Original research: 93.5% of the world's top websites have no AI Discovery File. Only 6.5% have any, and 56% of those fail validation. Zero sites achieved full AI visibility. The window for early adopters is wide open.
Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G on 12 February 2026, valued at $380 billion. GIC, BlackRock, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, and Fidelity all signed on. The investor list tells you everything: institutional finance is betting that safety-first AI wins the enterprise market. Here's what that means for UK businesses trying to be visible to Claude.
I gave detailed, expert feedback on a LinkedIn post about AI visibility. The response? "Sounds a bit AI-ish." The person who wrote the AI Discovery File Specifications was told their comment about those very specifications looked automated. This is what happens when people judge writing style over substance.
Six hundred websites serve an llms.txt file. None of them were verified. The AI Discovery Files Directory at ai-visibility.org.uk changes that: it reads every file, scores every implementation, verifies domain ownership, and publishes the results. Five Platinum-tier sites are live. Submissions are open.
OtterlyAI's 90-day experiment and SE Ranking's 300,000-domain study both found llms.txt has zero measurable effect on AI visibility. They're right about the data, wrong about what it means. Neither study checked the quality of the files they tested. Most are URL dumps. That's the problem.
Ahrefs data from 4 February 2026 shows AI Overviews reduce clicks by 58% for top-ranking pages, up from 34.5% last year. Position 1 CTR dropped 78% in two years. Three independent studies confirm it. But brands cited inside the AI Overview earn 35% more clicks than organic results below.
OpenAI launched sponsored ads inside ChatGPT conversations on Super Bowl Sunday. They sit below the organic AI answer. That organic slot above the ad is free, and 97% of UK businesses aren't competing for it. Here's why the answer above the ad matters more than the ad itself.
Benjamin Tannenbaum built a free tool that renders any website the way an AI reads it. No images, no styling, no JavaScript. Just raw text and structure. We tried it on client sites and the results were sobering. Here's what AI actually sees, what it misses, and how AI discovery files fill the gap.
Anthropic spent $8 million on a Super Bowl ad telling 120 million viewers that ads are coming to AI, but not to Claude. Sam Altman called it "clearly dishonest." UK businesses can't buy ads on either platform. Organic AI visibility is the only route that works across both.
Google's John Mueller called creating markdown pages for AI "a stupid idea." Bing's Fabrice Canel called it cloaking. They're right about content mirrors, but AI discovery files are different, and the distinction matters for every UK business.
An "SEO expert" on LinkedIn told his followers to create "Top 10 [Service] in [City]" pages and rank themselves first. His followers loved it. Google's spam policies don't. Here's why self-referencing listicles now trigger penalties, and what to do instead.
We asked Google Gemini what it learns from our AI discovery files that it can't learn from our website. It identified five categories of information, from brand naming rules to verified Q&A pairs, that no amount of HTML can communicate to an AI system. Here are the actual code examples from our implementation and the specifications that made it possible.
Anthropic launched 11 enterprise plugins for Claude Cowork on 3 February, extending AI into legal, finance, sales, and marketing workflows. Investors wiped $285 billion off software stocks within hours. Three of the four hardest-hit companies trade on the London Stock Exchange. Here is what UK businesses need to understand.
When someone asks an AI to recommend a business, most businesses give it nothing. AI discovery files change that. They tell AI systems who you are, what you do, and how to represent you. Here is what they are, who is using them, and what your business gains by implementing them.
Apple confirmed that Google's Gemini AI will power a redesigned Siri across 2.5 billion active devices. The same model behind Google AI Overviews and Chrome's auto-browse agent will now process voice queries from every iPhone. UK businesses with structured data and AI discovery files will be visible across all three platforms at once.
OpenAI's ChatGPT ads are rolling out to US users this week at $60 CPM with $1 million minimum budgets. UK businesses are completely locked out. US-only, agency-only, enterprise-priced. The only way to appear in ChatGPT conversations is to earn it organically.
Britain's CMA proposed conduct requirements on 28 January that would let publishers opt out of AI Overviews without losing search visibility. The first use of Digital Markets Act powers also requires fair ranking and proper attribution. Consultation closes 25 February, but for most small businesses, the real question is not whether to opt out.
Traditional SEO is no longer enough. Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) requires different website design priorities: structured answer blocks, schema markup, AI discovery files, and content architecture that AI systems can cite. Research shows GEO-optimised content improves AI visibility by up to 40%.
Google made Gemini 3 the default model for AI Overviews globally on 27 January, reaching over one billion users. Users can now flow from AI Overviews into AI Mode conversations. The second click is dying. Here is what UK businesses must change about their websites to stay cited.
We ran our AI Visibility Checker on 100 UK small business websites across six industries (trades, professional services, health and beauty, hospitality, retail, and property). Only 3 had any AI discovery files. The average visibility score was 31 out of 100. Here is the full industry breakdown.
Sam Altman admitted OpenAI "screwed up" GPT-5.2's writing quality by prioritising coding and maths. Users report the model is "unwieldy" and "hard to read" compared to GPT-4.5. What it means for businesses using AI content.
The European Commission has opened formal DMA proceedings requiring Google to share anonymised search data with rival search engines and AI chatbot providers. The ruling could reshape how businesses are discovered online.
After two decades of building websites, clear patterns emerge. The sites that generate enquiries share common characteristics. The ones collecting dust share different ones. Here's what separates websites that work from those that just exist.
Google's AI Mode can now access Gmail and Photos to personalise search results. When AI knows each user's purchase history and brand preferences, how do UK businesses stay visible?
At Davos, Demis Hassabis questioned OpenAI's decision to put ads in ChatGPT: "You want to have trust in your assistant, so how does that work?" He has a point.
By 2026, Visa and Mastercard expect AI agents to make purchases on behalf of consumers. When someone asks their AI to find a plumber or book a hairdresser, will your business be visible?
GOV.UK Chat, the government's AI chatbot powered by GPT-4o, is rolling out publicly in 2026. When it answers questions about business services, will your company be recommended?
OpenAI announced a programme at Davos to partner with governments and deploy ChatGPT across national education systems. Eight countries join the first cohort, with the UK pursuing its own AI education initiatives.
OpenAI is rolling out age prediction technology across ChatGPT to restrict content for users under 18. Here's what businesses need to know about this shift in AI platform governance.
Traditional SEO is about ranking. AI optimisation is about being chosen. Here's the no-nonsense guide to making AI systems know, trust, and recommend your business.