Does llms.txt help me show up in AI answers?

For Google's AI features, the documentation says no. Google's page on AI features in Search states: "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features." It also says there is "no special schema.org structured data that you need to add." The requirement it gives is that a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet.

For other engines, we have not seen documentation from the major AI companies saying they read llms.txt to decide what to cite. If one of them publishes that, it is worth revisiting.

So put the effort where it counts:

• Keep your pages indexable and snippet-eligible.
• Let the AI crawlers you want through robots.txt and your firewall.
• Put a direct answer at the top of each page, with the facts stated in text.
• Keep your business facts the same on your site, your Google Business Profile, and the directories that matter.

If you still want the file, it costs little. List your most important pages with one plain sentence each, keep it accurate, and treat it like a sitemap for people. Just do not spend a week on it or expect a lift in mentions.

A quick way to test any tactic: pick 10 prompts, record who gets mentioned and which sources are cited, make one change, and run the same prompts again over the following weeks. Answers vary, so judge the trend across runs, not a single answer.