llms.txt: how to get your business into ChatGPT and AI Overviews

Customers no longer look for businesses only on Google. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Copilot who in their area builds stone terraces or where to rent a copier in Gdańsk. And in Google itself, the answer more and more often starts with an AI summary (AI Overviews) shown above the regular results.

With this shift came the buzzword GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), meaning optimization for search engines and chats powered by AI, and also the llms.txt file. In this article I explain what the file is, what it does and doesn’t do in practice, and what you can do so that AI tells the truth about your business.

What llms.txt is

llms.txt is a plain text file in Markdown format that you place in the root directory of your website, at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. It contains a short description of your business and a list of the most important subpages with a one-sentence description of each. It is meant to help language models quickly understand what a website is about, without digging through menus, scripts and cookie banners.

The format was proposed by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI in September 2024. It is a proposal, not an official standard, and no AI provider is obliged to use it.

What such a file looks like

The file starts with the business name (an H1 heading) and a short summary in the form of a quote. Then come sections with links. The “Optional” section holds things the model can skip when it is short on space. Here is an example for a fictional renovation company:

# Example Renovations

> Turnkey bathroom and kitchen renovations in Giżycko and the surrounding area.
> Free site inspection, quote within 3 business days, VAT invoice.

## Services

- [Bathroom renovation](https://example.pl/remont-lazienki): scope of work, materials, indicative prices
- [Kitchen renovation](https://example.pl/remont-kuchni): scope of work and timeline

## Company

- [Projects](https://example.pl/realizacje): before-and-after photos with descriptions
- [Contact](https://example.pl/kontakt): phone, address, working hours

## Optional

- [Blog](https://example.pl/blog): renovation tips

I have llms.txt files deployed on about 15 websites, including Kopiarki Gdańsk, Drzwi Giżycko and Tarasy Giżycko.

Does llms.txt work? An honest answer

A few things need to be said plainly here:

• There is no guarantee that an AI chat will read your file. As of October 2026, I have not come across an official statement from any major AI provider that its chat regularly uses llms.txt when answering users.
• Google doesn’t need llms.txt. Google representatives have said publicly that the search engine doesn’t use this file. According to Google, AI Overviews don’t require any special files or markup: the page has to be indexed and meet the usual SEO rules.
• The file won’t hurt. Preparing it is little work, and along the way you organize the information about your business, which is also useful for people and for a regular search engine.

Bottom line: llms.txt is one of several steps, not a ticket into ChatGPT’s answers. What I describe below matters more.

Where AI gets information about a business

Put simply, an AI chat answers in one of two ways: from knowledge acquired during the model’s training, or from a live web search. For questions about local businesses, prices and opening hours, search is often involved. And search means indexes and crawlers:

• AI Overviews are part of Google Search, so what counts is indexing by Googlebot. Gemini also relies on Google Search.
• Copilot uses the Bing search engine.
• ChatGPT in search mode uses, among other things, its own crawler, OAI-SearchBot.
• Perplexity has its own crawler, PerplexityBot.

Before you start thinking about GEO, make sure your website is well visible in regular search engines. That includes Bing, which many businesses forget.

What to do, step by step

1. Let in the AI search crawlers

Check your robots.txt file. If you block OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or Bingbot, chats won’t be able to fetch current information from your website. Crawlers that collect data for training models, such as GPTBot, are a separate matter. OpenAI separates them from its search crawler, so you can block training and still appear in ChatGPT search results:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

Also check your firewall and CDN settings. Some services let you block AI bots with a single switch, so it’s easy to do it unknowingly.

2. Submit your website to Google and Bing

Add your website to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, submit your sitemap and enable IndexNow so that Bing learns about changes faster. It’s a one-time job that I do from PLN 190.

3. Write facts instead of slogans

From the sentence “comprehensive services at the highest level” AI has nothing to quote. From the sentence “turnkey bathroom renovations in Giżycko and the surrounding area, quote after a free site inspection” it can take a concrete piece of information. Your website should clearly describe:

• what you do and what you don’t do,
• who you work for and in what area,
• indicative prices or ranges,
• turnaround time, warranty and payment method,
• company name, address, phone number and working hours, in the same form everywhere.

4. Add an FAQ with real questions

Collect the questions customers ask by phone and email and answer them on your website. The first sentence of an answer should answer directly, without an introduction. A short, self-contained passage is easy to quote in full.

5. Add structured data

Schema.org structured data (e.g. Organization or LocalBusiness, Service, Product, FAQPage) describes your business in a format machines can read without guessing: name, address, phone number, offer and prices. It doesn’t guarantee a special display in results, but it helps avoid errors in the data.

6. Prepare llms.txt

Only now, once your content is in order, is it worth describing it in llms.txt. The file should match what is on the website. When you change prices or your offer, update the file too.

7. Take care of information about your business outside your website

AI chats in search mode combine information from many sources: your Google Business Profile, business directories, social media, reviews and articles. If you have an old address or phone number in one place, AI may repeat it. Start with your Google Business Profile on Google Maps and the directories you’re already listed in.

8. Check what AI says about your business

Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot a few questions your customers ask. Note whether your business appears, what in the answer is untrue and which sources the chat cites. Answers differ between conversations, so ask each question several times. Without such checks you don’t know whether any of the steps above works.

Limitations worth knowing about

• Nobody can give a guarantee. Neither I nor anyone else can promise that ChatGPT will start recommending your business. If someone promises it, ask how they will measure the effect.
• A model’s knowledge can be out of date. If a chat answers without searching, it may give information that is many months old.
• Advertising is something different. Since the end of August 2026, Polish businesses can buy ads in ChatGPT, currently in beta. It is a paid block labeled as sponsored and shown below the answer, not a recommendation by the chat.
• GEO extends SEO; it doesn’t replace it. A website that isn’t in Google and Bing has little chance of getting into AI answers.

How much it costs to prepare a website for AI

I do the full website preparation from PLN 990: an llms.txt file, structured data, content fixes aimed at what AI likes to quote, and a check of what AI says about your business today. Ongoing support costs from PLN 690 a month.

For comparison, agencies sell GEO mainly as subscriptions, from about PLN 990 to PLN 10,000 a month. If your website doesn’t have the SEO basics yet, start with those: SEO and search rankings with me is from PLN 790 a month, and the audit alone from PLN 990. All prices are net.

Let’s check your business

Want to know what AI says about your business today and what can be improved? Write to me through the form. I will reply with a quote within 24 hours, and new clients get a 20% discount on their first order.