Known by name, missing from the shortlist
AI Search for Schools: 53% of International Schools in 12 Indian Cities Were Never Named
Often only when a parent already knows the name. In August 2026 we asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews five questions a parent might ask about their city.
We then checked 342 international schools in 12 major Indian cities, each with a postal address that confirms its city. 160 of them (46.8%) were named at least once. When a question included the school's name, the answers mentioned it almost every time.
The signals meant to help AI read a website are still rare. Of 647 school websites we audited, 17.9% publish an llms.txt file and 17.8% use EducationalOrganization structured data. A readable website is the entry ticket. A place on the shortlist takes more.
How often schools are named
Does ChatGPT recommend international schools in India?
Sometimes. ChatGPT named 123 of the 342 schools at least once in its answers to our five parent questions. Across all four engines, the chart counts how many of those five questions got each school named.
182 schools (53.2%) never came up. At the other end, 31 schools (9.1%) were named whichever of the five questions a parent asked. Of the 160 schools that were named, 53 came up for just one question.
Engine by engine
Which AI engine names the most schools: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or AI Overviews?
Each engine got the same five questions for each city, so the comparison rests on identical prompts.
ChatGPT named 38 more schools than Gemini. Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews sat within four schools of each other. Being named by one engine does not carry over: 37 schools were named somewhere, but never by ChatGPT.
City by city
Is it harder to get named by AI in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad or Chennai?
In our data, yes. Every city got the same five questions, whether we had 73 address-verified schools there or 4.
In the four cities with the most schools, 89 of 239 (37.2%) were named. In the other eight cities together, 71 of 103 (68.9%) were. The same questions have to cover far more schools in a crowded city, so each school has less room in the answer. That is our reading of the pattern; the data does not test it directly.
Run the check yourself
How can I check if my school appears in AI search?
Asking an engine about your school by name is the wrong test, because the name is already in the question. The useful test is a parent's question with no name in it.
The gap runs from 64 to 76 points. Google search looks similar: for 549 of 673 schools (81.6%), the school's own website was the first result for its name. That is a floor, because we counted exact domain matches only.
A check you can run this week
- Write the questions a parent new to your city would ask, with no school named. The five in our method below are a starting point.
- Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google in a private browser window, so your own history does not shape the answer.
- Record whether your school is named, and which schools are named instead.
- Repeat monthly. Answers change between runs, and a single answer is a snapshot.
See your own school's AI readiness next to the schools in this study.
llms.txt
Does llms.txt actually help a school get recommended?
We cannot show that it does. An llms.txt file is a short Markdown file at the root of a website that points AI tools to its key pages.
of the school websites we checked publish an llms.txt file (116 of 647, in August 2026).
On 15 September 2026, Gemini told us adoption among school sites "is near zero".
We tried to test whether schools with the file were named more often. On the address-verified base, the test is too small to trust. In the eight smaller cities, only 14 schools publish the file, below the 20 we set as a minimum for any comparison. So we report no link in either direction.
"having schema or llms.txt doesn't necessarily mean an AI will recommend the school."
ChatGPT, 15 September 2026, when we asked whether any study of school AI visibility exists.
Publishing the file takes little effort. Judge it by whether AI tools describe your school correctly, and do not count on it for a place on a shortlist.
Structured data
What schema markup should a school website use?
Structured data tells search engines and AI tools what a page describes. For a school, the core type is EducationalOrganization, or its more specific schema.org type, School. The chart shows how school websites score on 11 signals that help machines read them, with the four schema signals in olive.
340 websites carry some structured data, yet only 115 say they are an educational organisation. That leaves 225 websites whose markup never tells a machine it describes a school. FAQPage schema appears on 43 websites.
Start with EducationalOrganization or School on the homepage, with the school's name, address, phone number, website and official profiles. Add FAQPage only where a page shows real questions and answers. Halo, our AI search visibility programme for schools, checks this markup as part of its site audit.
Two layers
What is an AI visibility score, and where do Indian schools sit?
We measure AI visibility in two layers. The first is readability: whether an AI tool can fetch and understand a school's website. The second is being named when a parent asks for a shortlist, which the sections above cover.
Our AI readiness score measures the first layer. It runs from 0 to 100 and weights 11 checks, including structured data, llms.txt, heading order, server-rendered content and image alt text.
Scores ran from 10 to 95. 210 websites (32.5%) scored below 40, and 102 (15.8%) scored 70 or more.
Benchmark and method
Is there a benchmark for AI visibility of Indian schools?
Before this study, the engines themselves said there was none. We asked both on 15 September 2026 whether any published data exists on how visible Indian international schools are in AI search.
"I couldn't find a published, statistically robust study specifically measuring AI-search readiness of Indian international schools."
ChatGPT, 15 September 2026
"no published empirical research, benchmark report, or industry audit that specifically tracks AI search visibility"
Gemini, 15 September 2026
This page is our answer. We call the naming measure the AI Shortlist Index, and we publish it in aggregate only. No school is named on this page.
How we measured
- The naming figures cover address-verified schools in 12 major cities. Of the schools in the 70 cities we asked about, we kept those whose postal address matches that city.
- Schools with no resolvable city, or whose address placed them elsewhere, are left out. We do not count them as unnamed.
- On 19 August 2026 each of the four engines answered five questions per city, once each (wording shortened):
- Which are the best international schools in the city? List the top schools a parent should consider.
- Which schools in the city offer the Cambridge curriculum?
- We are relocating to the city with a 10-year-old. Which international schools should we apply to, and why?
- Which international schools in the city offer the best value for money?
- Shortlist five international schools in the city for strong academics and good pastoral care.
- A school counts as named when the distinctive part of its name appears in an answer. A chain name alone does not count for a branch.
- The 342 schools share 329 websites. Campuses of the same group stay separate, because each has its own name in an answer.
- Readiness signals come from 683 websites checked on 19 August 2026. The 10 failed checks are excluded, leaving 673 checks on 647 websites. Some school groups run several campuses from one website, so readiness figures count each website once. Naming figures count schools, because an AI answer names a school.
- Named questions covered eight topics per school, such as fees and admissions, from 30 August to 3 September 2026. Failed answers are excluded, and Perplexity is left out entirely.
- The Google figure comes from a search for each school's name, checked on 18 August 2026. We matched the school's own domain in the top five results.
- Each question got one answer per engine, and AI answers vary between runs. Any link between a signal and being named is an association in one sample, not proof of cause.
Full results for all 689 schools, including speed and admissions, are in the International Schools in India: Digital Report 2026.
Where does your school stand?
Our free scorecard puts your school's website next to the 689 international schools in our study, AI readiness included.