Your customers ask AI.
What does it say about you?
AI Discoverability · Audience Intelligence
Ryan St. Pierre · Threshold Labs · Feb 2026
I picked 7 businesses in this market and ran them through an audit and a simulator.
One audits how AI sees you. The other tests how projected customers react to your actual content.
Nobody was prepped. Nobody knew they were being tested.
The Audit

The table stakes. Almost nobody's doing them.

Business Score Grade llms.txt Schema Meta AI Crawlers
Telluride Yoga Festival
66		 B ✗ ✓ ✓ Blocked
Riversage Counseling
56		 C ✗ Empty ✓ Open
Flowers by Ella
51		 C ✗ ✓ ✓ Blocked
FRESH Foundation
45		 C ✗ Empty ✓ Open
Inkwell Games
36		 D ✗ ✗ ✓ Blocks all
Colorado Custom Fire Pits
21		 D ✗ ✗ ✗ Open
Telluride Racquet Club
21		 D ✗ ✗ ✗ No robots.txt
42
Average score out of 100
0/7
Have llms.txt
0/7
Have proper schema for their category
The Paradox

Great content. Invisible to AI.

The Audit scores how AI sees each site. The Simulator tests how projected customers react to the actual content. The content works. The discoverability doesn't.

Racquet Club
Content
95
AI Vis.
21
74
point gap
Fire Pits
Content
88
AI Vis.
21
67
point gap
Flowers
Content
83
AI Vis.
51
32
point gap
FRESH
Content
80
AI Vis.
45
35
point gap
Inkwell
Content
70
AI Vis.
36
34
point gap
Riversage
Content
75
AI Vis.
56
19
point gap
Yoga Fest
Content
63
AI Vis.
66
-3
content problem
The Simulator: Healthcare

The content is half working

Riversage Family Counseling, Durango CO · 55 personas · Impact: 75/100. Specific services (EMDR, DBT, LGBTQ+) hook the right people. The generic intro loses the rest.

Alicia Morningstar-Webb · Environmental Consultant
"Finally found explicit LGBTQ+ affirmation in Durango! The collaborative team approach and variety of modalities is exactly what I need."
FULL Engagement: 82
Maria Gonzalez · ER Nurse
"EMDR and trauma therapy caught my eye immediately — I need help processing what I see at work."
FULL Engagement: 78
Todd Rasmussen · Construction Worker
"Durango's close enough I guess, but 'affordable' better mean like actually affordable. Insurance stuff cut off right where I needed the answer."
PARTIAL Engagement: 35
Kyle Hutchinson · College Student
"Looks legit but I'm already overwhelmed by all the options and still don't know if they take my insurance or have evening hours."
PARTIAL Engagement: 35

The specific service names do the heavy lifting. But the generic intro — "complex issues with strength and compassion" — loses everyone who doesn't scroll past it. Lead with specifics, not platitudes.

The Simulator: E-Commerce

Perfect product. AI sends buyers to Amazon.

Robert 'Bob' Fitzgerald · Retired Tech Exec
"Handcrafted steel log sets from Colorado mountains? This is exactly the authentic mountain aesthetic my clients are looking for."
FULL Engagement: 82
Jennifer Calabrese · Luxury Real Estate Stager
"These steel log sets could be absolute showstoppers for my luxury outdoor staging — they photograph beautifully."
FULL Engagement: 82
Marcus Chen · VP Property Operations
"Interesting outdoor amenity option, but I need bulk pricing, durability specs under heavy use, and installation logistics."
PARTIAL Engagement: 35
Revenue Impact
Impact score 88
AI visibility 21
Designer avg. order $2,400
Conversion vs. casual 3x
1 designer/month lost $28.8K/yr

AI recommends Amazon & Lowe's instead.
Fix: Add Product schema + llms.txt.

The Simulator: Events

The Simulator found a messaging bug

Telluride Yoga Festival. 18 years running. Only 26 of 85 personas gave full attention — lowest impact score in the batch.

The Paradox

The website says "intimate" and "100+ offerings, 40+ teachers" in the same breath.


"A four-day yoga festival in Colorado? I can barely commit to a weekly class. This feels like it's for committed yogis only."

— Sloane Pembroke (IGNORE, engagement: 15)


"Large festival format doesn't address my need for couples-focused programming with flexible scheduling."

— Corinne Mitchell-Hayes (IGNORE, engagement: 15)

The Two-Part Fix

Technical: Add Event schema with dates, pricing, lineup. AI can surface it in "yoga festivals Colorado 2026" queries immediately.


Content: Resolve the intimacy paradox. Either lean into boutique (cap attendance, small groups) or lean into comprehensive (something for everyone).


Current score: 66/100 (B)

With Event schema: ~82/100 (A)


Best site in the batch — easiest fix, biggest return.

The Simulator

This is user testing. At scale.

01
The Old Way

Focus groups: 8–12 people, weeks to schedule. A/B tests: need traffic you don't have yet. Surveys: people say what they think you want to hear.

Cost: $8K–$15K per round
02
Generate Personas

55–95 projected customers per business. Real psychology, real decision patterns, real objections. Not demographic buckets — individuals.

Tonight: 548 personas, 7 businesses
03
Test Your Content

Each persona independently evaluates your actual content. Verbatim reactions. The specific words that hook people and the specific words that lose them.

Output: messaging bugs + blind spots
04
Fix & Retest

Change your copy, rerun the simulation. Test before you publish. Every page, every campaign, every content change — in minutes, not months.

Time: < 3 minutes per run
The Advantage

From projections to proof.

Everything The Simulator just showed you used projected personas. They're good. But they get better when you connect them to your actual data.

Ecommerce

Which products actually drive margin? Simulate customers for your high-margin lines, not just your best sellers. Optimize content for the business you want to build.

Shopify Square

Analytics

Calibrate personas against people who actually convert. Your analytics already know who your best customers are. We make The Simulator match them.

Google Analytics Looker

SEO Data

Align AI visibility with what people are actually searching for. Core business vs. new lines. Core audiences vs. exploratory audiences.

Search Console Semrush

AI Observability

See exactly when AI crawlers and chatbots hit your site. Know which models are reading your content, how often, and what they're pulling.

Cloudflare

The Simulator becomes a testing ground calibrated to your real customers.
Change your copy, rerun it, measure the difference — before anything goes live.

Working Together

Three layers. Each one builds on the last.

01
The Audit
llms.txt, schema markup, robots.txt, meta tags. The stuff AI actually reads. Every business in this room can fix this this week. Most of your competitors won't.
Start Here
02
The Simulator
Test how projected customers react to your actual content. Find the messaging bugs, the blind spots, the words that hook people and the words that lose them. Fix before you spend.
Content Edge
03
Your Data
Hook into ecommerce, analytics, and SEO. Optimize for margin, not just traffic. Test core audiences vs. exploratory. The Simulator learns from your actual customers.
Moat
Your business isn't just selling to humans anymore.

Own how your story gets told. Everywhere.
Ryan St. Pierre · Threshold Labs
ryan@thresholdlabs.io
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