OpenAI to Honor Shared Robots.txt Signal for AI Training Preferences

OpenAI announced on October 30, 2026 that it will honor a shared signal in robots.txt, the file websites use to express preferences about how their content is used, so that site operators can communicate a single AI training preference to multiple participating providers at once. In its announcement, OpenAI described the effort as voluntary and said it addresses an existing burden: until now, website operators had to identify individual crawlers and maintain separate rules for each and every provider. A shared signal, the company said, lets publishers and website operators communicate the same preference to multiple participating providers at once. OpenAI said it aims to implement the signal in the coming months and will share another update with implementation details when it does.