# AI readiness of the Forbes Cloud 100 The [Forbes Cloud 100](https://www.forbes.com/lists/cloud100/) ranks private cloud companies. Their homepages are what an AI crawler reads before it reaches the product. We scanned the 2025 edition once per company with CrawlWise, looking at crawler access, server-rendered text, structured data and the formats built for agents. 84 homepages could be scored. Scanned on 5 November 2026 with checkset 0.4.10. Aggregates only: no site is named. The list counts companies, not websites; one homepage stands in for each. ## Key numbers - Median score: 77.6 of 100 (mean 74.8, range 30–89.7) - Block an AI search bot in robots.txt: 0 of 82 (0%) - Block AI training bots in robots.txt: 4 of 82 (5%) - Answer AI user agents differently: 2 of 84 (2%) - Need JavaScript for the main content: 6 of 83 (7%) - Publish llms.txt: 53 of 81 (65%) - Serve a Markdown version: 20 of 83 (24%) - JSON-LD that describes the organisation and page: 56 of 84 (67%) - Declare a Content-Signal: 11 of 84 (13%) - Publish an API or agent discovery document: 12 of 84 (14%) - Expose WebMCP tools: 1 of 84 (1%) - Publish DNS-AID records: 0 of 100 (0%) ## Scores The median homepage scored 77.6 out of 100 and the mean 74.8, from 30 to 89.7. Most cluster in the 70s and 80s: 62 of the 84 scored homepages sit between 70 and 89. No homepage reached an A (90 or more). | Score | Homepages | |---|---| | 0–9 | 0 | | 10–19 | 0 | | 20–29 | 0 | | 30–39 | 1 | | 40–49 | 0 | | 50–59 | 7 | | 60–69 | 14 | | 70–79 | 30 | | 80–89 | 32 | | 90–100 | 0 | | Grade | A | B | C | D | E | F | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Homepages | 0 | 32 | 30 | 14 | 7 | 1 | ## Where homepages lose points | Check | Weight | Passed | |---|---|---| | Markdown is available for agents | 8 | 1% | | Page resources stay within a reasonable budget | 3 | 2% | | Content images are described and efficient | 3 | 10% | | Internal links are crawlable and descriptive | 2 | 13% | | Automated accessibility checks pass | 2 | 17% | | Document structure is extractable | 5 | 21% | ## Method and limits - The sample is the 2025 edition of the Forbes Cloud 100, the latest published. Each company's homepage was scanned once from one machine in Europe with the standard CrawlWise checkset: . - 84 could be scored; 15 returned a block or challenge and 1 failed. Those sites are outside the check denominators, which is why every share says how many homepages it covers. - A homepage is one page. A company can do better on its documentation, blog or product pages, and a homepage is not where an AI crawler always lands. - AI user agents were sent from our address, not from the crawler operators' addresses. A firewall that verifies IPs can treat the real crawlers differently. - Markdown counts when the homepage advertises it or serves it for `Accept: text/markdown`. Word overlap with the rendered page measures whether it matches; navigation and link URLs in converted Markdown lower that score. - Performance figures come from one unthrottled browser visit. They are lab observations, not field Core Web Vitals or PageSpeed Insights scores. ## Data The per-check counts, with no site named. - CSV: - JSON: - License: the aggregate CSV and JSON are available under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The article text and the CrawlWise name are not covered by that license. - Cite this study: CrawlWise, "AI readiness of the Forbes Cloud 100" (2026), . Scan your own homepage: --- Last updated 5 November 2026. HTML version: Every CrawlWise page in Markdown: