Local SEO · 6 min read
AI assistants are shortlisting suppliers. Yours might be invisible to them.
What AI tools can and can't read on your site, and how to get cited.
The short answer
AI agents buying from your website build supplier shortlists from text they can parse: clear service names, locations, prices, accreditations and structured data. Businesses that hide detail in images, scanned PDFs or vague copy get skipped. State facts plainly and mark them up with schema to be the one recommended.
By Raja Wahab, Co-founder, Fixby Studios · Published · Updated · 6 min read
What an AI agent can and can't read
- Readable: page text, headings, structured data, FAQs, published prices.
- Not readable: text inside images, scanned PDFs, content that only appears after a click or a scroll animation.
- Weakly weighted: marketing adjectives like 'trusted' or 'leading' with no fact behind them.
Text in images or scanned PDFs
- — Invisible to AI crawlers
- — Facts never get read
- — Competitor gets cited instead
Plain page text and structured data
- — Parsed quickly by AI tools
- — Facts get picked up
- — You're the one cited
How AI agents buying from your website decide who to recommend
When a buyer asks an AI assistant to find a supplier, it pulls from pages it can parse quickly and cross-checks facts across your site, your Google Business Profile and directories. Consistency and specificity beat polish every time.
This is a shift from traditional search, where a nicely written but vague page could still rank. An assistant summarising options for a buyer needs something concrete to say, and if your page doesn't give it one, it will quote a competitor's instead.
How to be the cited supplier
- Say exactly what you do, for whom, and where, in the first two sentences of each page.
- Add Organization, Service, FAQ and Review structured data.
- Publish specifics: prices, MOQs, lead times, capacities, accreditations.
- Keep a clean sitemap and an llms.txt file so crawlers find the right pages.
- Match your name, address and phone number exactly across your site, Google Business Profile and directories.
“AI tools can't read text trapped in images or scanned PDFs.”
The uncomfortable part
Vagueness used to be a negotiating tactic: keep options open, avoid committing to a number, let the phone call do the work. Now it's a filter that removes you before a human ever sees your name.
The businesses winning AI recommendations are simply the ones willing to publish facts their competitors are still keeping back for the phone call.
Sources
Your questions
- How do AI agents buying from your website choose which supplier to recommend?
- They parse readable page text and structured data for specific facts — services, prices, locations, accreditations — and cross-check consistency across your site, Google profile and directories.
- Does structured data actually help with AI search?
- Yes. Schema markup for Organization, Service and FAQ content gives AI tools a clear, machine-readable summary of your business, which plain text alone doesn't guarantee.
- Will text inside photos or PDFs be picked up?
- Generally no. Content locked inside images or scanned PDFs is effectively invisible to most AI crawlers, so key facts need to exist as real page text too.
Raja Wahab is co-founder of Fixby Studios, a Huddersfield studio building websites, SEO, social media and business software for small, owner-managed businesses across West Yorkshire.
Next step
Let's get your business seen.
A free plan to get you found on Google and the map.
Fixby Studios builds websites, runs SEO and manages social media for small businesses across Huddersfield and West Yorkshire. SEO in Huddersfield
Prefer to talk it through? Contact Fixby Studios, email info@fixbystudios.co.uk or call 07737 067552.
