Press and downloads.
Everything to run the story. The Crane Index™ measures how cleanly a machine can read and represent the leading organisations in an industry. Every figure below is a first-party measurement, free to quote and republish with attribution, and re-runnable live in about a minute.
Headline findings
- The FTSE 100 (measured 1 October 2026). Of Britain's largest companies, 79 were approached and 41 could be read by a machine at all, and not one reached the Strong band of 70 out of 100. The field is led by GSK at 65. Budget bought none of them legibility.
- The UK's biggest online retailers (measured 1 October 2026). Of 142 major storefronts, only 75 could be read by a machine, and retail's identity read collapsed to a median of 28. The list is topped not by a giant but by Interflora at 76.
- The same shape in every industry (measured 1 October 2026). The technical reads hold up and the read that tells a machine who you are does not. Across all 21 benchmarks the median Agent Readiness score runs between 62 and 69 out of 100, while median Brand Representation runs between 12 and 34, and not one industry has it the other way round. That gap, rather than any single score, is the story.
- The programme. Twenty-one benchmarks: the FTSE 100, the UK's biggest online retailers and 19 industry and sector benchmarks. Across them we set out to read 3,368 of the leading organisations in their fields and could read 2,295, each benchmark re-scored on the first of each month so the movement becomes public record. All 21 are listed below with their own figures.
The one-line story is the same in every cohort: the machine-readable web is early, structure decides rank rather than size or spend, and the top of every table is unclaimed territory.
Every benchmark, and what each one found
All 21 read to the same three-part method, so the medians are comparable across industries. If a figure for one industry was sent to you, this is where to check it and see the rest of the field around it. Each name opens that benchmark's own ranked table, where every organisation is listed by name and a site that could not be read is reported as unmeasured rather than scored.
| Benchmark | Read | AI search | Agent | Brand | Crane Index | At 70+ | Leads it for AI readability | Take it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FTSE 100 | 41 of 79 | 49 | 63 | 15 | 43 | 0 | GSK (65) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| UK Ecommerce | 75 of 142 | 53 | 69 | 28 | 52 | 1 | Interflora (76) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Automotive | 102 of 179 | 46 | 62 | 13 | 40 | 4 | Vertu Motors (77) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Consumer Goods | 119 of 188 | 49 | 65 | 15 | 46 | 3 | Tapestry (75) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Education | 91 of 123 | 53 | 69 | 15 | 48 | 5 | Fettes College (78) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Energy and Utilities | 120 of 175 | 47 | 65 | 13 | 42 | 5 | OVO Energy (78) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Financial Services | 122 of 175 | 53 | 63 | 15 | 45 | 5 | Fidelity Investments (76) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals | 132 of 177 | 49 | 65 | 13 | 43 | 4 | Hologic (76) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Hospitality and Leisure | 121 of 182 | 50 | 63 | 15 | 43 | 7 | Orangetheory Fitness (79) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Insurance | 124 of 181 | 53 | 63 | 15 | 44 | 4 | Everest (77) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Legal Services | 135 of 171 | 52 | 63 | 19 | 46 | 3 | LegalZoom (78) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Manufacturing and Industrial | 131 of 176 | 51 | 65 | 18 | 44 | 6 | Konecranes and Trimble (72) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Media and Entertainment | 125 of 172 | 47 | 63 | 13 | 42 | 3 | Faber & Faber and Nintendo (76) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Professional Services | 144 of 172 | 60 | 68 | 25 | 51 | 7 | Cherry Bekaert (75) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Real Estate and Property | 126 of 186 | 52 | 65 | 19 | 46 | 6 | AppFolio and MRI Software (76) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Technology and Software | 123 of 169 | 64 | 65 | 34 | 57 | 16 | Dynatrace (88) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Telecommunications | 133 of 184 | 52 | 63 | 20 | 48 | 5 | Wessex Internet (78) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Transport and Logistics | 107 of 176 | 52 | 63 | 15 | 44 | 3 | Agility (73) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Travel and Tourism | 86 of 171 | 55 | 63 | 24 | 47 | 4 | Princess Cruises (73) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| UK Airports | 22 of 32 | 54 | 63 | 12 | 47 | 0 | Cornwall Airport Newquay (65) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Universities | 116 of 158 | 52 | 68 | 13 | 43 | 5 | University of Kent (88) | PDF · CSV · JSON |
Reading the columns. Read is how many of the cohort an automated reader could reach at all; the rest were approached and could not be read, and they are named on each table with the reason. Where a benchmark approached fewer organisations than its name suggests, its own page says why, as the FTSE 100 does. The three reads are AI Search Readiness (the retrieval read: can an engine resolve you and extract what you sell), Agent Readiness (the execution read: can an automated agent get in and act) and Brand Representation (can a machine confirm who you are). Crane Index is the composite of the three. Every median is the midpoint of the readable sites, so a site that refused a reader is left out of it rather than scored as zero, and At 70+ counts the sites in the Strong band. Leads it is the top-scoring public site, shown jointly where the top score is shared. Measured 1 October 2026, and re-measured on the first of each month. Every check behind these figures, and every exclusion, is set out in the methodology.
Any score in any of these tables can be re-measured against the live site in about a minute on the free Crane Index™ scanner, so nothing here has to be taken on trust. Every row's data is the same archive the tables are built from, as CSV for a spreadsheet and JSON for a chart, under the licence below.
A quote you may use
“The web spent thirty years being optimised for people. We have now read 2,295 of the leading organisations in their fields for how well a machine can understand them, and 96 of them score 70 or better. The Crane Index™ measures that gap in public, one industry at a time, and the striking part is that budget does not close it. Structure does.”
Nic Crane, founder, The Crane ConsultancyFigures measured 1 October 2026 across 21 benchmarks, and re-measured on the first of each month.
Downloads
Those are the programme-wide assets. Every one of the 21 benchmarks carries the same again in the table above: its own board report, and the archive the table is built from as CSV and JSON. Reports refresh on the first of each month. For the full method behind every figure, see the methodology.
Licence and how to cite
Released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: free to quote, chart and republish with attribution. Please cite as:
The Crane Index™, the AI readability benchmark. The Crane Consultancy. thecraneconsultancy.com/research/
Press contact
For interviews, a specific industry cut, or a figure checked before you publish, write to hello@thecraneconsultancy.com. We are glad to run a bespoke cohort for a story on request.
Every organisation in these tables is named, so every one of them has a right of reply. Any company can re-measure its own score live, ask for a re-scan if its site has changed, or have a domain corrected for the next monthly run. The methodology sets that out in full, alongside every exclusion.
Questions about the Crane Index
What does the Crane Index measure?
How readable and well-optimised a site is for AI, drawn live from its real pages across three deterministic reads: whether an AI engine can retrieve and cite it, whether an agent can act on it, and whether it is described accurately. Each is scored out of 100, and the composite is the Crane Index.
Why does AI readability matter now?
Because discovery is moving. In 2026, Google reported that its AI Mode in Search had passed a billion monthly users. What an assistant can read of an organisation comes down to the machine-readable layer of its site, the structured data Google Search Central documents.
How often is it re-run?
Every month, on the first, so the movement is a matter of public record rather than a single snapshot. Every constituent is named, ranked and archived, and each score can be re-run live against the site as it stands today.
The senior read,
once a week.
Most marketing newsletters are noise on a schedule. This is not that. Once a week I send a short, considered read on the shifts that actually change what you should do, across the AI shift, PPC, technical SEO and analytics. Filtered, weighted and signed off by me before it goes out. The judgement is mine, and now you can hear every edition in my own voice.
Nic CraneFounder, The Crane Consultancy
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