Google Lighthouse adds audit for AI agent resource discovery

Google has introduced a new audit in Lighthouse 13.5 focused on Agentic Resource Discovery (ARD). This feature is designed to help AI agents locate the specific tools and services provided by an organization.

The audit functions by checking for a catalog pointer through several methods: searching the robots.txt file for an Agentmap line, looking for a link tag with the ai-catalog relation, or checking the HTTP Link header. If no pointer is found, the system defaults to searching for /.well-known/ai-catalog.json, though recent specifications have moved the preferred location to /.well-known/ard.json.

Because standards for the agentic web are still emerging, this audit falls under an experimental Agentic Browsing category and does not produce a traditional 0-100 score, instead providing a pass ratio. The update is expected to roll out in Chrome 156 DevTools and PageSpeed Insights within two weeks.