Archive: Building 92 at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington, photographed June 18, 2015. Microsoft is among the companies backing the proposed shared AI-training preference. Jiaqian AirplaneFan / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0. Resized; no other change.
OpenAI, Google and Microsoft have backed a shared signal that would let website owners communicate their AI-training preferences to multiple companies at once, reducing the need to maintain a separate instruction for each provider.
The companies outlined their plans in October 30 announcements. The proposed control would sit in robots.txt, the file websites use to give automated systems instructions about their content.
The change is not taking effect everywhere immediately. OpenAI said it aims to implement the signal in the coming months. Google said it aims to support it in 2027. Microsoft said its new preferences will begin taking effect February 1, 2027, as it crawls websites.
A shared preference, not a universal block
OpenAI described the effort as voluntary and said its existing crawler controls will remain in place. Google likewise said company-specific controls will continue alongside the shared signal.
The proposal draws on work by the Internet Engineering Task Force’s AI Preferences working group. Microsoft said that work is still moving toward a final standard.
For publishers and businesses, the aim is a simpler way to express whether their web content may be used for generative AI training across participating providers. It is not a guarantee that every AI company or automated system will honor the preference.
Microsoft separates training from AI answers
Microsoft also announced a separate page-level choice for AI grounding, meaning the use of web content to help inform an AI-generated response. That is distinct from using content to train a model.
The company said publishers will be able to allow grounding, prohibit it, or limit it to Microsoft-operated experiences rather than grounding services supplied to third parties. These preferences do not change a site’s eligibility for traditional Bing search results, subject to normal crawling and indexing requirements.
Microsoft said sites relying on its older NoArchive or NoCache instructions must move to the new preferences by March 1, 2027, to maintain their chosen restrictions. Preserving grounding restrictions during the transition also requires a temporary preference in Bing Webmaster Tools.
The announcements set out future implementation plans. They do not establish licensing or payment arrangements, and the training preference should not be confused with a universal ban on crawling or on use of content in AI answers.
Primary sources: OpenAI; Google Search Central; Microsoft Bing.
JBizNews Technology Desk | Redmond, Washington
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