Caidance — AI-Readiness Score

The Caidance Discovery Index (CDI) provides a 0–60 readiness score designed to assess how effectively a small or mid-size business is positioned for discovery by AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. This score evaluates whether a business's website is readable and meets the operational thresholds that AI engines use when recommending businesses to users. The CDI is published as an open, citable methodology and is supported by industry-specific playbooks and scoring tools within the Caidance toolkit.

The CDI is structured around two main categories of signals. The first, accounting for 60% of the score, measures the completion of ten industry-specific structural fixes aimed at improving clarity, trust, conversion paths, and compliance posture—factors that AI engines actively assess. The remaining 40% of the score is based on operational health checks, including automated weekly assessments of uptime, SSL validity, page speed, basic SEO, and the functionality of contact forms. This approach rewards businesses that maintain ongoing readiness rather than relying on one-time optimizations.

Businesses are classified into four readiness bands based on their CDI score: Starter (0–15), Builder (16–30), Operator (31–45), and Leader (46–60). Each band reflects a different level of operational discipline and AI discoverability, from foundational issues in the Starter band to consistent, proactive monitoring in the Leader band. The CDI specifically addresses the challenge that traditional SEO metrics do not capture AI-era buyer behavior, where industry-specific queries are increasingly routed through AI assistants rather than traditional search engines.

The tool also distinguishes between website intelligence, measured by the CDI, and systems intelligence, which is evaluated by a separate Alignment Score. The CDI focuses exclusively on the external discoverability and clarity of a business's website as perceived by both AI agents and human buyers.