RankRoot Research · Published 2026-10-09 · Download the data (CSV)

State of AI Visibility 2026: we audited 538 SaaS & AI sites for ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI agents

More and more buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or an AI agent which tool to use before they ever open Google. We ran the same 22-point audit behind RankRoot on the homepages of 546 well-known SaaS, developer and AI products to see how ready they are to be read, understood and recommended by AI.

Key findings

• The average score was 86/100 (median 90). Well-known brands do the basics, but the AI-specific layer is patchy.
• Crawler access is mostly solved (average 97/100). Structured data is the weakest area (average 71/100).
• Only 18.9% of sites have all three of llms.txt, product schema and Q&A content.
• 5.9% show little or no content unless JavaScript runs, so crawlers that do not render JavaScript see an almost empty page.
• 3 sites block at least one AI search bot in robots.txt, which keeps them out of those assistants' live answers.

How common is each problem?

Scores by category

Grade distribution

Sites that block AI search bots

Blocking AI training crawlers (GPTBot, Google-Extended, CCBot) is a reasonable choice. Blocking AI search bots is different: those bots fetch pages live to answer questions and cite sources, so blocking them keeps a site out of the answer. These sites blocked at least one of them in robots.txt when we crawled (re-checked October 9, 2026; ZoomInfo has since fixed its robots.txt and is no longer listed):

Perfect scores

23 sites passed every check. They are good references if you want to see what AI-ready looks like:

Arcade · BugHerd · Fathom Analytics · Filestack · Fly.io · Frase · Glama · Hunter · LambdaTest · Leadpages · MailerLite · Make · Murf AI · OpenStatus · Outreach · PostHog · Postmark · Reducto · SigNoz · Speakeasy · Transloadit · Zapier · Zendesk

Top 25

Full list with every score: the AI Visibility Index.

What to fix first

1. Do not block AI search bots. Allow OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot even if you block training crawlers. Guide
2. Add product and organization schema. One JSON-LD block that says what you sell, who you are and where your profiles are. Guide
3. Publish /llms.txt. A short Markdown map of your most important pages. Free generator
4. Answer the questions people ask AI on the page itself: what it is, who it is for, how much it costs, and how it compares. Guide
5. Make it usable by agents. Link your API docs, pricing and, if you can, an MCP server. Guide

See where your site stands

Run the same audit on your own site. It is free, takes about 10 seconds and gives you ready-to-paste fix files.

Methodology

Sample: 546 homepages of well-known SaaS, developer-tool and AI products, collected from public product directories and launch lists, so the sample leans toward tech companies and is not a random sample of the web. Each homepage, its robots.txt, sitemap and llms.txt were fetched once in October 2026 by RankRootBot. 22 checks are grouped into four categories (AI crawler access, readable content, structured data, agent readiness) and weighted into a 0–100 score. Response time was measured but is excluded here because batch crawling makes it noisy. Results are a snapshot; site owners can rescan live from each site page.

Use this data

The data is free to use under CC BY 4.0. Please link to this page when you cite it:

<a href="https://getrankroot.com/research/state-of-ai-visibility-2026">State of AI Visibility 2026 (RankRoot)</a>

Download CSV · Questions or corrections: rankroot.support@proton.me