⭐ Beginner — No coding experience needed
AI Agent Compatibility: Letting ChatGPT and Claude Use Your Site
Learn how AI agents like ChatGPT Operator and Claude Computer Use interact with websites, and how to make your forms, buttons and navigation agent-friendly.
What you will learn in this guide
- What AI agents are and how they differ from search crawlers
- Why generic crawler signals don't apply to agents
- How to make forms agent-fillable
- Why "Click here" buttons fail for agents
- How llms.txt and accessibility overlap with agent compatibility
1 What is an AI agent?
An AI agent is an LLM-powered system that browses websites on behalf of a user — clicking links, filling forms, and completing tasks. Examples: ChatGPT Operator, Claude Computer Use, Anthropic Computer-Using Agent, Perplexity Auto.
Why agents matter:Within 2 years, a significant share of conversions on most sites will come from agents booking, buying or signing up on behalf of users. Sites that block or frustrate agents lose this entire channel.
2 How agents differ from crawlers
| Crawler | Agent |
|---|---|
| Reads HTML once | Interacts continuously |
| Doesn't click buttons | Clicks every button on the path to a task |
| Ignores forms | Must fill forms to complete tasks |
| Stateless | Maintains session and context |
| Cares about robots.txt for indexing | Cares about robots.txt for permission to act |
3 How to make your site agent-friendly
- 1Add autocomplete attributes to every form fieldAgents use autocomplete tokens to know what each field expects.
autocomplete="email",autocomplete="name",autocomplete="tel"etc. - 2Use real
<label>elementsNot just placeholder text.<label for="email">Email</label>with matching id on the input. Agents read labels to understand fields. - 3Replace "Click here" with descriptive button textBad: "Click here". Good: "Add to basket", "Submit booking", "Continue to checkout". Agents predict what a button does based on its text.
- 4Ensure every key action is reachable by keyboardTest with Tab and Enter. If you can't complete a task with just the keyboard, an agent often can't either.
4 AI crawler robots.txt directives
Decide which AI agents you allow. Add to your robots.txt:
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
Don't accidentally block all AI agentsSome default robots.txt files block GPTBot, ClaudeBot or CCBot. If you want AI visibility, allow them. If you want to opt out of training data, that's a different directive than blocking live agent access.