Open dataset
EU AI Readiness Observatory
An open measurement of how ready European companies are to be read and cited by AI systems. 70,669 companies headquartered in the EU-27, scored across eight layers, published under CC BY 4.0.
What this measures
AI assistants increasingly answer buyer questions before anyone reaches a website. Whether a company appears in those answers depends on whether its site can be reached, rendered, read and used as a source. The Observatory measures that across the European market, on a repeatable eight-layer model, and publishes the aggregated results openly.
The Observatory measures companies headquartered in the EU-27, identified by firmographic country data, not by domain extension. A .com domain owned by a German company is in scope; a .eu domain owned by a US company is not.
Sample
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Companies headquartered in the EU-27 | 70,669 |
| Analysed in Report 01 (excludes AI-crawler blockers) | 46,588 |
| EU-27 countries with at least 400 measured companies | 12 |
| Scoring layers per company | 8 |
| Data collected to | 13 August 2026 |
The sample is deliberately conservative. Companies whose headquarters country is unknown are excluded entirely, so real European coverage is higher than the figures above.
The eight layers
| Layer | What it measures |
|---|---|
| L1 — Crawler access | Whether AI crawlers are permitted to fetch the site at all |
| L2 — Server-side rendering | Whether content exists in the HTML before JavaScript runs |
| L3 — Indexability | Whether pages are technically eligible to be indexed |
| L4 — Ground-truth content | Whether the site states concrete, extractable facts about the company |
| L5 — Technical SEO | Classic technical hygiene |
| L6 — On-page SEO | Metadata completeness and internal structure |
| L7 — Citation readiness | Whether the site is structurally usable as a source by AI platforms |
| L8 — Publishing activity | Whether the site shows current, maintained content |
Full scoring detail is published in the methodology.
Key term: the Citation Gap
The Citation Gap is the difference between a website’s classic SEO score and its AI citation readiness, measured on the same 0–100 scale. A positive Citation Gap means citation readiness trails SEO.
Reports
Report 01: A high SEO score does not predict AI readiness
Published 18 August 2026. Across 46,588 EU-27 companies the correlation between classic SEO and AI readiness is 0.54. The Citation Gap widens as SEO improves, from −8.4 in the weakest SEO band to +22.9 in the strongest. Czechia carries the widest national gap at 9.6 points, France the narrowest at 5.2.
Licence and attribution
Aggregated results are published under CC BY 4.0. Reuse, adaptation and republication are permitted, including commercially, provided the source is attributed. Per-company data is not published.
Attribution
VerisAI, EU AI Readiness Observatory, verisai.eu
Cite as
VerisAI (2026). EU AI Readiness Observatory, Report 01: A high SEO score does not predict AI readiness. 46,588 EU-27 companies measured to 13 August 2026. https://verisai.eu/observatory/report-01-seo-does-not-predict-ai-readiness
About the publisher
The Observatory is published by VerisAI (BELVO, s.r.o.), founded in 2025 and headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. VerisAI works with B2B mid-market companies across Europe on AI visibility governance. More on the about page, or get in touch.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the EU AI Readiness Observatory?
A continuously updated measurement programme that scores how ready companies headquartered in the EU-27 are to be read, understood and cited by AI systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity.
How is EU membership determined?
By the company's headquarters country in firmographic data, never by domain extension. A .com owned by a German company is in scope; a .eu owned by a US company is not.
How many companies does it cover?
70,669 companies headquartered in the EU-27, of which 46,588 are analysed in Report 01 after excluding companies that block AI crawlers outright.
Can I reuse the data?
Yes. Aggregated results are published under CC BY 4.0 and may be reused, adapted and republished, including commercially, with attribution to VerisAI, EU AI Readiness Observatory, verisai.eu.
Is per-company data published?
No. Only aggregated results by country, SEO band, segment and scoring layer are published.
What is the Citation Gap?
The difference between a website's classic SEO score and its AI citation readiness, measured on the same 0-100 scale.
The same eight-layer assessment, free, on any URL.