Your About page is probably the most underused asset on your website. Most businesses treat it as a formality, a place to slap a founding story and a team photo and call it done. But for AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, your About page is one of the most important signals they use to decide whether your business is worth mentioning at all.
This matters more than most people realise. AI search engines do not just crawl your site the way Google does. They build a model of what your business is, what it does, who it serves, and whether it can be trusted. Your About page feeds directly into that model. Get it right, and you become a credible source the AI will reference. Get it wrong, or leave it thin and vague, and the AI simply ignores you.
Here is exactly what to put on it.
Why AI Models Pay Close Attention to Your About Page
Large language models are trained on enormous amounts of text from across the web. When they encounter your site, they piece together a picture of your business from every page they can read. But some pages carry more weight than others, and your About page is near the top of that list.
The reason is simple: About pages tend to contain declarative, factual statements. "We are a Bristol-based skincare brand founded in 2018." "We specialise in organic ingredients sourced from British farms." These kinds of sentences are exactly what AI models use to build structured knowledge about an entity, whether that entity is a person, a business, or a product.
Contrast that with a product page, which is mostly transactional. Or a blog post, which might be useful but is often dated and topic-specific. Your About page is where you get to state, clearly and authoritatively, what your business actually is. AI models give that clarity a lot of credit.
There is also the question of trust signals. AI search engines, particularly the ones generating cited answers like Perplexity, are looking for evidence that a source is reliable. A well-written About page that includes named people, verifiable credentials, a clear location, and a consistent business description reads as far more trustworthy than a vague page that says things like "we are passionate about quality."
The Core Elements Every About Page Needs
A clear, specific business description in the first paragraph
Do not bury the lede. Within the first two or three sentences, your About page should tell anyone reading it, human or machine, exactly what your business does, who it serves, and where it operates. Think of it as an entity definition.
Bad example: "Welcome to Bloom & Co. We are passionate about bringing joy to your home."
Better example: "Bloom & Co is a UK-based online florist supplying fresh seasonal flower arrangements to homes and offices across England and Wales. We have been delivering since 2015 and work with growers in Kent, Yorkshire, and the Wye Valley."
The second version gives an AI model something concrete to work with. It knows what the business is, where it operates, how long it has been running, and who supplies it. Every one of those details increases the chance the AI treats your business as a real, credible entity.
Named people with real roles
Faceless businesses are a red flag for AI models. When there are no named individuals on an About page, the business feels less real, less accountable, and less trustworthy. Name your founder. Name your team leads. Include their roles and, if relevant, their professional background or credentials.
You do not need a full biography for everyone. Even a sentence per person helps. "Sarah Finch, founder, previously ran operations at a Midlands-based wholesale nursery for eight years" tells an AI model that there is a real person here with relevant experience. That matters for trust.
If your business is a solo operation, do not hide behind the royal "we." State clearly who you are and what you bring to the table.
Specific credentials, accreditations, and proof points
Vague claims like "industry-leading" or "trusted by thousands" are invisible to AI models because they carry no verifiable weight. Specific claims are different.
Things that genuinely help: membership of industry bodies (and naming them), certifications (with the certifying organisation named), awards (with the year and awarding body), notable clients or press mentions, years of operation, and quantifiable results where possible.
"Certified by the Soil Association" is useful. "Accredited member of the British Chambers of Commerce" is useful. "Winner of the 2023 Drapers Independent Retail Award" is useful. These are the kinds of claims AI models can cross-reference and treat as evidence of legitimacy.
A consistent brand name and location throughout
AI models build entity knowledge partly through repetition and consistency. If your About page refers to your business by three slightly different names, uses inconsistent capitalisation, or lists a different address than your contact page, you create ambiguity. Ambiguity makes AI less likely to confidently reference you.
Pick the canonical version of your business name and use it consistently. The same goes for your location. If you are based in Manchester, say "Manchester" (or more specifically, "Northern Quarter, Manchester") rather than vaguely referring to "the North of England."
Structuring Your About Page for Machine Readability
Use headings that signal clear topics
AI models parse your page structure. If your About page is one long wall of prose, it is harder for a model to extract the key facts cleanly. Break it into labelled sections. "Our story," "Our team," "What we believe," "Our certifications." This helps both human readers and machine readers locate information efficiently.
Write in plain, declarative sentences
Flowery copywriting is the enemy of AI readability. Sentences like "born from a dream to reimagine the possibilities of sustainable living" give AI models nothing to work with. Declarative sentences do the job: "We launched in 2019 with the goal of making plastic-free cleaning products available to UK households at supermarket prices."
Short, clear, factual. That is the standard to aim for, at least in the sections where you are stating who you are and what you do.
Add schema markup to reinforce what you have written
This is where a lot of businesses leave significant value on the table. Writing a great About page is step one. Step two is adding structured data, specifically Organization schema, to make those facts machine-readable in a format AI crawlers can parse directly.
With Organization schema, you can explicitly declare your business name, founding date, location, area served, founding members, social profiles, and more. This is not just for Google. AI crawlers that read your page will also benefit from the additional clarity that structured data provides.
At FlinnSchema, this is one of the first things we implement for clients. A well-written About page combined with Organization and Person schema is one of the highest-impact changes you can make for AI visibility. You can see the full picture of how we approach this differently here.
What to Avoid on Your About Page
Some of the most common About page mistakes actively hurt your chances of being picked up by AI search engines.
Generic mission statements. "We are committed to excellence and customer satisfaction" tells an AI model nothing. It is also the kind of phrase that appears on millions of websites, which means it carries no signal value at all.
Overuse of images with no supporting text. If your About page is heavy on team photos and light on actual words, AI crawlers will not have much to read. Images do not convey the entity information that text does. Make sure every key fact is written out clearly, not just implied by a picture.
Outdated information. An About page that still says "founded in 2015 with a vision for 2020" looks neglected. AI models pay attention to signals of recency and maintenance. Keep your About page current. Update it when things change.
No connection to your broader online presence. If your About page does not link to your social profiles, your press coverage, or your key team members' professional profiles, you are missing an opportunity to help AI models verify your existence and reputation across multiple sources.
Connecting Your About Page to the Rest of Your AI Visibility Strategy
Your About page does not exist in isolation. It works best as part of a broader effort to make your business clearly legible to AI search engines across every touchpoint.
That means making sure the facts stated on your About page are consistent with what appears in your schema markup across your site, in your Google Business Profile, in any press mentions or directory listings, and on the social profiles you link to. Consistency is the single biggest factor in helping AI models build a confident, accurate picture of your business.
If you are not sure how visible your business currently is to AI search engines, the starting point is to check what ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini actually say about you today. This guide walks you through exactly how to do that.
From there, the About page is one piece of a larger puzzle that includes your schema implementation, your content strategy, and how your site is structured. A free AI visibility audit will show you where you currently stand and which changes are likely to have the most impact.
The businesses that start appearing in AI search results are not the ones with the biggest ad budgets or the most backlinks. They are the ones that have made it easy for AI models to understand who they are, what they do, and why they can be trusted. Your About page, done properly, is one of the fastest ways to start making that case.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should my About page be for AI search engines?
There is no magic word count, but thin About pages of under 200 words tend to underperform. Aim for at least 400 to 600 words of substantive, factual content. Longer is fine if the content is genuinely informative, but padding for the sake of word count will not help. Quality and specificity matter far more than length.
Does schema markup on my About page actually make a difference?
Yes, meaningfully so. Adding Organization schema to your About page gives AI crawlers a structured, unambiguous version of the facts you have written in prose. It reduces the chance of misinterpretation and increases the likelihood that the information is correctly associated with your business entity. It is one of the highest-value implementations you can make for AI visibility.
Should my About page mention specific products or services?
It can, but keep the focus on entity-level information rather than product-level selling. Your About page should answer "who are you and why should I trust you," not "buy this product." A brief mention of your main product or service categories is useful for context, but detailed product information belongs on dedicated pages.
How often should I update my About page?
Review it at least once a year, and update it whenever something significant changes: a new team member, a new accreditation, a new location, a notable award or press mention. Keeping it current signals to both AI models and human visitors that your business is active and engaged. Stale content, particularly dates and claims that are clearly out of date, can erode the trust signals you are trying to build.