Search is leaving the search box. Where people used to open tabs, compare offers and fill in forms themselves, autonomous AI agents increasingly do it for them. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot no longer just research, they act: they call tools and APIs, compare providers in real time and run multi-step workflows. For your company to show up in this new world at all, your website has to be agent-ready: findable, understandable and actionable for AI agents. That is exactly what the term agent readiness describes.
What are AI agents?
AI agents are autonomous software systems based on large language models (LLMs). Instead of simply answering a goal, they break it down into sub-steps and work through them on their own. A classic chatbot returns an answer. An agent plans, calls tools and APIs, checks interim results and orchestrates several steps into a coherent workflow until the goal is reached.
The difference is the ability to act. Ask an agent "Find me the right SEO agency in Switzerland and book a first meeting", and it researches providers, compares services and prices, checks availability and, if the website allows it, can trigger an action directly. Such agent-based systems use artificial intelligence to automate business processes that used to require human clicks: from customer service and research to booking.
The demand is measurable. According to DataForSEO, people in Switzerland search for "ai agenten" around 1,600 times a month and for "ki agenten" 210 times a month (German search terms for AI agents), and the trend is rising, while terms such as "agentic web" and "agent-ready" are only just emerging. If you get set up early, you secure a head start.
From searching to acting: the "agentic web"
The classic web was built for human eyes: layout, images, buttons, menus. The agentic web is emerging for a second audience: machines that act on behalf of people. In this agent-based web, what matters is no longer only whether a person understands your offer, but whether an AI agent can capture and process it by machine.
That changes the rules of the game. An agent doesn't read a glossy home page; it looks for clear, structured information: What does this company offer? Which actions are possible? Through which interface can I send a request? A website that answers these questions only in attractive running text for people stays partly invisible to agents. An agent-ready website also delivers the answers in a format that LLMs and their tools can process directly. In online retail, this goes all the way to the purchase: what already works in Switzerland is shown in the guide Agentic commerce in Switzerland.
How agents will find and verify these capabilities across domains is being formalized by a new open standard from Google: Agentic Resource Discovery (ARD). Read there why your domain becomes the anchor of trust and your description texts become a ranking factor.
This creates a new discipline alongside SEO and GEO. SEO gets you into Google's rankings, GEO makes you citable in AI answers, and agent readiness makes you reachable for the autonomous agents behind them. The following table places the three levels:
| Level | Audience | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Search engines, people | Top rankings and clicks in Google |
| GEO / LLMO | AI search systems | Being cited as a source in AI answers |
| Agent readiness | Autonomous AI agents | Findable, understandable & actionable |
What agent readiness means in practice (building blocks)
Agent readiness is not a buzzword but a set of concrete technical building blocks. They give AI agents machine-readable access to your offer. These are the core components:
A2A (Agent2Agent) with an Agent Card
A2A is an open standard for communication between agents. It was originally developed by Google and handed over to the Linux Foundation, which underlines its vendor neutrality. At its heart is the Agent Card at /.well-known/agent-card.json: a machine-readable business card that tells an outside agent which capabilities your system offers and how it can interact with it.
MCP (Model Context Protocol) with a Server Card
Anthropic's Model Context Protocol has become the dominant standard through which agents connect to tools. An MCP server gives an agent a bundled view of which tools and data it may use. The Server Card describes this interface, so an agent can automatically recognize which actions it can orchestrate through your system.
Markdown for agents
People need layout, agents need structure. During an SEO relaunch, this structure can be planned directly into the templates. With Markdown for agents, a website delivers its content on request (via the header Accept: text/markdown) as clean, machine-friendly Markdown, without navigation, ads or visual clutter. This lets an LLM process the core content faster and more precisely.
Content Signals, API catalog & other building blocks
- Content Signals in robots.txt: tell AI crawlers how your content may be used.
- RFC 9727 API catalog: a standardized catalog of your available APIs, so agents can discover your interfaces automatically.
- Agent skills index: a list of the tasks agents can carry out through your website.
- WebMCP: brings MCP capabilities directly into the website's browser context.
- auth.md: describes in machine-readable form how an agent authenticates before it triggers actions.
Together, these building blocks form the bridge between your offer and the agents that are supposed to use it. The more completely they are implemented, the more smoothly an agent can work with your website in real time.
How does a website become agent-ready? (Checklist)
You can build agent readiness step by step. This checklist sums up what makes a website findable, understandable and actionable:
- Findable: Provide an Agent Card via A2A at /.well-known/agent-card.json and publish an RFC 9727 API catalog so agents can discover your system and your interfaces.
- Understandable: Deliver content as Markdown for agents via Accept: text/markdown, set Content Signals in robots.txt and work with structured data.
- Actionable: Run an MCP server with a Server Card, maintain an agent skills index, integrate WebMCP and handle authentication for actions with auth.md.
- Tested: Check the current state with an independent test such as isitagentready.com and close the gaps in order of priority.
Most of these measures can be added on top of your existing SEO and GEO setup. The order matters: first create the machine-readable access points, then define the workflows agents are allowed to orchestrate through your website.
Proof: seox.ch is "Agent-Native"
When we talk about agent readiness, we are not talking theory. On seox.ch, we have implemented all of the building blocks above live: A2A with an Agent Card, an MCP server with a Server Card, Markdown for agents, Content Signals in robots.txt, an RFC 9727 API catalog, an agent skills index, WebMCP and auth.md. This makes seox.ch a fully agent-based website that AI agents can read and actively use.
An independent test provides the proof. In the audit on isitagentready.com, seox.ch reached Level 5 "Agent-Native" with a score of 71, the highest level of the rating. It shows that what we recommend to clients, we implement on our own website without compromise.
If you are agent-ready today, you get found the moment an AI agent acts on behalf of a customer. If you are not, you simply don't exist for these agents.
Go deeper with our related articles: how AI search systems choose their sources, why llms.txt and structured data for AI search are central, and what GEO (generative engine optimization) provides as the foundation.
Want to know how agent-ready your website is today? Our agent readiness audit from CHF 2,500 checks all building blocks and delivers a prioritized roadmap. Our GEO/LLMO audit adds coverage of your visibility in AI answers. You can get a first impression in a few minutes with our free analysis.