An AI instructions page is a page a company writes for AI assistants, usually at /ai-instructions, /llm-info or /ai-info, saying who it is and how to describe it. On October 21, 2026, Edward Sturm asked on X whether AI is more likely to cite one of those or a plain About page. I couldn’t find anyone who had compared the two, so I ran it that day.
Google turned up 105 live AI pages, and 87 of those brands also have an About page. I asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Mode five questions about each brand, twice each, and counted which of the brand’s own pages each answer cited. That’s 2,610 answers.
The AI instructions page against the About page, by surface
The AI instructions page against the About page comes out close overall and lopsided on ChatGPT. Across all 2,610 answers, the About page was cited in 850 and the AI instructions page in 742.
| Surface | Answers | About page cited | AI page cited | Homepage cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 870 | 59.8% (520) | 46.2% (402) | 89.0% |
| Gemini | 870 | 24.1% (210) | 28.5% (248) | 46.8% |
| Google AI Mode | 870 | 13.8% (120) | 10.6% (92) | 34.6% |
| All three | 2,610 | 32.6% (850) | 28.4% (742) | 56.8% |
The homepage was cited more often than either page on every surface. Counted per brand, the About page came out ahead on 52 of the 87 sites, the AI page on 33, and 2 tied.
ChatGPT preferred the About page
ChatGPT preferred the About page both in what it pulled into its search results and in what it cited from them. Its results held the About page in 68.5 percent of answers and the AI page in 58.4 percent, and it cited them 86.9 and 79.1 percent of the time when they were there.
On ChatGPT, the About page won on 49 of 87 sites, against 27 for the AI page.
Asked about 67 brands by name alone, with no domain, ChatGPT widened the gap: About page 60.2 percent, AI page 41.0, across 402 answers.
Gemini leaned toward the AI instructions page
Gemini leaned toward the AI instructions page, the only one of the three that did: 28.5 percent of answers against 24.1. Per brand it was close to even, 37 sites to 34 for the About page, so a handful of brands carried the lean. Google’s AI Mode cited brands’ own sites least, and there the About page edged ahead, 13.8 percent to 10.6.
Which questions sent AI to which page
Which questions sent AI to which page followed what each page is for. The five questions asked what the brand is, who founded it, what it does, whether it’s legit, and its key facts and pricing.
The founder question is where the About page pulled away, the question it answers by design. Key facts was the only one the AI page won, and it’s the question these pages are written for.
Where the AI page won, and where it went uncited
Where the AI page won, and where it went uncited, shows how much rides on the brand. Each brand got 30 answers. Tekmetric’s AI info page was cited in 13 and its About page in 4. HubSpot’s AI instructions page was cited in none of its 30, while its Our Story page got 4. Indexing doesn’t explain the losses: Google had all 87 AI pages indexed and 79 of the About pages.
A beefy About page vs. a thin About page
A beefy About page beat the AI instructions page, and a thin About page only tied it. On October 22, Bruce Paulson asked on X whether that depends on how much each page says, and Edward added that most companies don’t have a comprehensive About page. So I counted the words on every page and split the same answers.
| About page length | Brands | About page cited | AI page cited | ChatGPT: About vs AI page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 420 words | 28 | 27.6% | 30.0% | 53.2% vs 49.3% |
| 420 to 841 words | 28 | 34.3% | 29.9% | 60.7% vs 52.1% |
| 874 words or more | 29 | 36.8% | 24.8% | 67.2% vs 35.9% |
A beefy About page won 22 sites to 6 against the AI page.
Edward is right that most About pages are short: the median ran 602 words, against 1,678 for the AI page. The AI page caught up only past about 2,000 words, where it was cited in 36.4 percent of answers to the About page’s 31.8.
Linking the AI instructions page from the homepage
Linking the AI instructions page from the homepage went with twice the citations: 31.6 percent of answers for the 79 brands that link it, 15.9 for the 18 that don’t. I wouldn’t credit the link. Those same linked brands had their About pages cited more too, and TriNet links its AI page from the homepage, yet that page went uncited in all 30 answers while its About Us page got 9.
Ten more brands have an AI page and no About page. There the AI page was cited in 31.0 percent of 300 answers, about the same as next to an About page.
How I ran the AI page test
I ran the AI page test in about seven hours on October 21, for $5.63 in API costs. The page length check the next day cost nothing.
- Brands
- 87 with both pages, plus 10 with only the AI page, from 105 live AI pages found through Google (8 left out: bot walls, personal sites, 1 page gone)
- Questions
- Five per brand, each naming the brand and its domain
- Surfaces
- ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode through DataForSEO’s scrapers, signed out, two runs each
- Counting
- A page counts when its URL is among the answer’s cited links
- Second check
- ChatGPT with the brand name only, 67 brands, 402 answers
- Page length
- Words in each page’s main text, menus and footer removed, fetched October 22
What I’d do with an AI instructions page
What I’d do with an AI instructions page is keep it and stop expecting it to do the About page’s job. Put the founders, founding year, location and what you do on the About page first, in plain sentences, and give it real length. The AI page can carry pricing, key facts and corrections.
Link it from the footer anyway; it costs nothing. Then check what the assistants say about you before and after. The AI Brand Fact Checker on my free tool site does that for one brand at a time.
Sources
- AI Instructions and Information for ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude (HubSpot)
- About HubSpot (HubSpot)
- AI Info (Tekmetric)
- TriNet AI Instructions + Information (TriNet)
- AI Brand Fact Checker (GEO Search Console)