10 things that won't happen if your business isn't agent ready

1. Find

   1. The customer's agent won't be let in

   Your robots.txt file or your bot protection may block AI agents by default. The customer asked their agent to check you, and it was turned away at the door. Nobody on your team sees it happen.

   What to ask your web team: Does our CDN, firewall or bot protection have an AI bot rule switched on, and is it set to log, challenge or block?

2. Find

   2. It won't find your key pages

   If your sitemap leaves out the pages that matter, the agent may never reach them. It works with what it can find, and a missing page is a page that does not exist for the customer.

   What to ask your web team: Is our sitemap generated automatically, and does it include the pages we most want found?

3. Read

   3. It won't see your prices

   Some sites only show prices after scripts run in a browser. An agent that reads the first response may see a product with no price. It cannot compare you, so it compares the others.

   What to ask your web team: Which of our page templates deliver their main content in the first HTML response, and which need JavaScript to show it?

4. Read

   4. It won't understand your plans, rooms or products well enough to recommend one

   The customer wants the right plan, room or product, not just any. If the differences are buried in images or vague text, the agent cannot explain them back to the customer with confidence.

   What to ask your web team: Which structured data do we publish on product, event, offer or article pages, and do we validate it?

5. Trust

   5. It won't find your policies

   Returns, cancellation and delivery terms often decide the sale. If they live in a PDF or a pop-up, the agent may not read them and may report back that it could not find them.

   What to ask your web team: Are our returns, cancellation, privacy and terms pages public, current and readable without JavaScript or a login?

6. Act

   6. It won't book the appointment or table

   A booking form built for a person, with steps an agent cannot follow, ends the task halfway. The customer gets a message that the booking could not be made.

   What to ask your web team: Can our main task be completed end to end as a guest, and where do CAPTCHAs or other challenges appear on the way?

7. Act

   7. It won't finish the sign-up

   Sign-up flows that depend on a person reading a screen can stop an agent. If sign-in and consent do not follow a standard flow, the customer has to step in and do it themselves.

   What to ask your web team: Do our sign-in and consent screens use a standard flow such as OAuth, and can a customer grant narrower permissions?

8. Pay

   8. It won't complete the purchase

   A checkout with a step only a person can complete stops the agent at the last moment. The basket is full and the order never arrives.

   What to ask your web team: Is the total price, including tax and delivery, in the page text before the last step?

9. Pay

   9. It won't pay on the customer's behalf

   Agent payments are new, and many payment set-ups only expect a person at the keyboard. Without a route for an agent to pay within limits the customer set, the task stops at payment.

   What to ask your web team: Have we looked at agent payment approaches such as x402, ACP, UCP or MPP, and what is our position?

10. Trust

    10. It won't be trusted as a real agent acting for a real customer

    Your fraud rules may treat every automated visitor the same. Without a way to tell a verified agent from an unknown bot, a genuine customer's agent can be blocked along with the rest.

    What to ask your web team: Can we tell verified bots, for example ones that sign requests with Web Bot Auth, from bots that only claim a name?

Updated 2026-10-18.