Last Updated on July 10, 2026
Fieldwork completed 2 July 2026. 120 UK independent business websites checked across 10 sectors in a single day.
More people ask ChatGPT, Google or Perplexity for a business than ever before. So we checked whether UK small business websites can actually be read by those tools: 120 independent businesses, 10 sectors, 6 checks each. The short answer is that almost nobody has thought about it, and the sectors that sell expertise are the least readable of all.
- 92% of sites have no AI crawler policy of any kind, in either direction.
- Exactly 1 site in 120 has a hand-written llms.txt. It belongs to a hair salon, not an accountant.
- Only about 6% use correct business-type structured data. One gym’s website tells AI it is a restaurant.
- FAQPage schema appeared once in the entire sample.
- Accountants and builders published prices on 0 of 24 sites. Restaurants managed 12 of 12.
- Independent cafes are nearly five times more AI-readable than accountants.
The league table
Each sector’s score is the average of four rates across its 12 sites: structured data present, visible FAQ content, visible pricing, and an llms.txt file. 100 would mean every site passed every check.
| Rank | Sector | AI-readability score | Structured data | Visible FAQ | Visible pricing | llms.txt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Independent cafes | 63 | 11 of 12 | 2 of 12 | 11 of 12 | 6 of 12 |
| 2 | Hair and beauty salons | 44 | 8 of 12 | 0 of 12 | 11 of 12 | 2 of 12 |
| 3 | Gyms and fitness studios | 42 | 6 of 12 | 2 of 12 | 9 of 12 | 3 of 12 |
| 4 | Dentists | 38 | 2 of 12 | 2 of 12 | 11 of 12 | 3 of 12 |
| 5 | Restaurants and takeaways | 31 | 2 of 12 | 0 of 12 | 12 of 12 | 1 of 12 |
| 6 | Electricians | 25 | 4 of 12 | 3 of 12 | 3 of 12 | 2 of 12 |
| 7 | Plumbers | 21 | 3 of 12 | 2 of 12 | 4 of 12 | 1 of 12 |
| 8 | Accountants | 13 | 5 of 12 | 0 of 12 | 0 of 12 | 1 of 12 |
| 9= | Estate agents | 10 | 3 of 12 | 0 of 12 | 2 of 12 | 0 of 12 |
| 9= | Builders and roofers | 10 | 3 of 12 | 0 of 12 | 0 of 12 | 2 of 12 |
What we checked, and what we found
| What we checked | Why it matters to an AI assistant | Result across 120 sites |
|---|---|---|
| robots.txt rules for AI crawlers | Decides whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot and friends may read the site at all | 111 of 120 never mention one. 5 block, all via platform toggles. 4 name them without restricting |
| llms.txt | A plain-text summary written for AI tools | 21 present, but 20 are auto-generated by Wix, Shopify or SEO plugins. Exactly 1 in 120 was written by a human |
| Structured data (JSON-LD) | Machine-readable facts: what the business is, where, opening hours | 47 of 120 observed, mostly generic page markup. Correct business-type schema: about 7. FAQPage schema: 1 |
| Visible FAQ content | Direct answers AI can quote | 11 of 120 |
| Visible pricing | The single thing people ask assistants about most | 63 of 120, with a huge sector split |
| JS-only homepages | A JavaScript-only page reads as blank to most AI crawlers | 5 of 120 serve effectively empty HTML |
The professional services paradox
The sectors whose customers do the most research before buying, accountants, estate agents and builders, are the least readable to the tools people now research with. Not one of the 24 accountant and builder sites we checked publishes a price. Meanwhile every restaurant in the sample links a menu, and dentists, whose treatment prices are commercially sensitive, still manage 11 of 12.
The result is a strange inversion: ask an AI assistant where to get a flat white in Leeds and it has plenty to work with. Ask it what an accountant charges for a limited company’s year-end accounts, a far more valuable question, and the honest answer is that almost no firm has published anything an AI could read.
The platforms are moving faster than their customers
The most striking pattern in the data was not what owners are doing, it is what their website platforms are doing for them. Every AI block we found was a Cloudflare or Squarespace toggle. All but one llms.txt file was generated automatically by Wix, Shopify or an SEO plugin. Several Wix sites in the sample even advertise live MCP endpoints, machine interfaces that let AI agents interact with the site, which we first documented in our AI Door Test study. Small businesses are acquiring AI infrastructure by default, without their owners ever deciding anything.
What this means if you run a UK business
Three checks cost nothing. Look at your robots.txt and decide, deliberately, whether AI crawlers are welcome. Publish the answers to the questions customers actually ask, starting with prices, even as ranges. And if your site is built on a modern platform, find out what it is already saying to AI tools on your behalf. None of this guarantees an AI will recommend you. It decides whether an AI can read you at all, and right now most of your competitors fail that test.
Common questions
How AI-ready is the average UK small business website?
Barely. Across 120 independent business websites checked on 2 July 2026, 92% had no AI crawler policy of any kind, only around 6% used correct business-type structured data, and exactly one site in the sample had a hand-written llms.txt file. Most UK small businesses are relying entirely on platform defaults they have never looked at.
Which UK business sectors have the most AI-readable websites?
Independent cafes topped our league with a readability score of 63 out of 100, followed by salons and gyms. Accountants, estate agents and builders scored lowest, at 13 or below. The sectors that sell professional services scored worst, largely because they publish no prices and little structured content.
Do many UK businesses block AI crawlers?
Very few. Just 5 of 120 sites blocked AI crawlers, and every one used a platform-managed toggle from Cloudflare or Squarespace rather than a deliberate hand-written rule. There is no evidence of a considered strategy in either direction: most owners have simply never made the choice.
What is llms.txt and does anyone use it?
It is a plain-text file that summarises a site for AI tools, the AI-era cousin of robots.txt. In our sample 21 sites had one, but 20 were auto-generated by Wix, Shopify or an SEO plugin. The only hand-written example in 120 sites belonged to a Manchester hair salon, which listed its services, prices and preferred citation.
Does being AI-readable guarantee an AI will recommend my business?
No, and be wary of anyone who promises that. Assistants weigh many signals, most outside your control. What these checks measure is whether an AI can read your business at all: what you do, where you are and what you charge. Readable is the qualifying round, not the podium.
On 2 July 2026 we audited 120 independent UK business websites, 12 in each of 10 sectors (cafes, salons, gyms, dentists, restaurants and takeaways, electricians, plumbers, builders and roofers, accountants, estate agents), sourced from public local searches across UK cities and screened to exclude chains and franchises. For each site we fetched robots.txt, llms.txt and the homepage, recording AI-crawler rules, structured data types, visible FAQ content, visible pricing and whether the homepage renders without JavaScript. Structured data was verified via each site’s own SEO plugin output where platforms prevented direct inspection, so schema counts are floors rather than exact figures. Scores average four binary rates per sector. Single-day snapshot; four unreachable sites were substituted with equivalents.
Cite this research
Suggested citation: Whito, How AI-Ready Are UK Business Websites?, July 2026. whito.co.uk/research/ai-readiness-uk-business-websites/
Journalists and researchers are welcome to reuse these figures with attribution. The full 120-row dataset is available on request.
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