For every AI provider you want to keep your text away from, you write a separate rule in robots.txt. Crawler by crawler, rule by rule. On 30 October OpenAI announced it will honor a common signal in that same file: one stated preference that applies to all participating providers at once. For now the signal does not work yet, because the rollout is still ahead.
Fact
The facts: on 30 October 2026 OpenAI announced that it will honor a common signal in robots.txt, the file through which websites express their preferences about the use of their content for foundational generative AI training. OpenAI calls it a voluntary effort that lets publishers and website operators communicate the same preference to multiple participating providers at once. The company says that until now operators have identified individual crawlers and maintained separate rules for each provider. The rollout is a plan: OpenAI aims to implement the signal "in the coming months" and will share another update with details about the implementation. The signal will not replace the controls the company already provides through robots.txt, and its existing crawler controls continue to apply. The work draws on the AI Preferences working group at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and OpenAI is joining other participants in it in the announcement of this shared signal. The company encourages other AI providers to honor it.
The old rules do not go away. Whatever you have already written for OpenAI's crawlers keeps applying, and the new signal is added on top of it.
The idea is sensible: one signal instead of a list of crawlers. But the announcement has gaps. Who the other participants in the working group are, it does not say. What the signal looks like in the file, it does not say either. What remains is an encouragement to other providers, and encouragement is not a guarantee. One more thing: "voluntary" is OpenAI's own word.
One signal for everyone only matters when everyone reads it.
The deadline is "the coming months", with no day. The test is OpenAI's second announcement: when it has a syntax and a date, then there is something to add to the file. Until then, leave robots.txt as it is.
Official primary sources
OpenAI - Making it easier for websites to express AI training preferences, 30.10.2026The visual is generated code-art, no third-party images.