--- type: InsightHub name: Known and matched id: "https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched" url: "https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched" publisher: "did:web:selfe.ai" description: "What it takes for an AI to know a business, not just find it." --- # An agent knows you like the back of its hand. > What makes you findable. Being found is the visible consequence of being known and matched properly, not the thing to chase directly. ## Start here - [The first thing an agent gets wrong about your business.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/the-first-thing-an-agent-gets-wrong-about-your-business) — An AI agent rarely gets a business wrong out of carelessness. It gets it wrong because the fact that would have changed the answer was never written down anywhere it could check. ## Featured - [Structured data, explained without the jargon.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/structured-data-explained-without-the-jargon) — A returns policy that says "just get in touch if there's a problem" and one that says "returns accepted within 30 days, unworn, tags attached" can describe the same shop. Only one of them can be checked by something that isn't a person using judgement. - [The things an agent cannot guess.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/the-things-an-agent-cannot-guess) — Getting found and getting matched are two different jobs. A business can nail the first and still lose the second, because an AI agent only knows what it's been told, never what it could have worked out by being there. - [How to check what AI is already saying about you.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/how-to-check-what-ai-is-already-saying-about-you) — Being found by an AI agent is the easy half of the job. Here's how to check where you stand today, and why the check itself only ever tells you half the story. ## More in this hub - [How much does an agent need to know before it can buy?](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/how-much-does-an-agent-need-to-know) — Not everything. An AI agent working through a booking request doesn't need a business's full history, it needs the small number of facts that resolve the specific thing the person asked for. A page with forty things to say and none of them the right one loses to a page with three. - [Your local knowledge is a sales asset.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/your-local-knowledge-is-a-sales-asset) — The best local knowledge lives entirely in conversation, asked for and answered in person. That's exactly the knowledge an AI agent can't reach, however good the website is. - [Why two businesses with the same facts get different recommendations.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/why-two-businesses-with-the-same-facts-get-different-recommendations) — Two shops can publish exactly the same facts about a similar product and still get recommended unevenly. The difference is rarely the facts. It's how confidently an AI agent can act on them. - [What it means to be found by an agent that already knows the person asking.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/what-it-means-to-be-found-by-an-agent-that-already-knows-the-person-asking) — A standing AI agent that already knows its person skips the broad question a search engine expects entirely. It arrives already narrowed, checking a shop's facts against one specific person's specific needs. - [What it means for an AI to know a place, not just describe it.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/what-it-means-for-an-ai-to-know-a-place-not-just-describe-it) — A product description tells an AI agent what a shop says about itself. Being known is a different, higher bar: whether an AI can trust what it's told enough to act on it. - [What changes the moment you go from mentioned to shortlisted.](https://selfe.ai/insights/known-and-matched/what-changes-the-moment-you-go-from-mentioned-to-shortlisted) — Being mentioned by an AI agent and being one of the two or three options it puts in front of someone are different achievements, and the second one is decided by a narrower set of facts than the first. ## Act on this - [Check whether an agent can buy from you](https://selfe.ai/agentic-commerce/buyability-check) — the free readiness scan. - [Discover venues](https://selfe.ai/api/registry/discover) — `POST`, semantic browse across the registry. - [Match a bookable answer](https://selfe.ai/api/registry/match) — `POST` with dates and party size. - [Verify Selfe's identity](https://selfe.ai/.well-known/did.json) — `did:web:selfe.ai`. - [Agent card](https://selfe.ai/.well-known/agent-card.json) — how to connect over A2A or MCP.