An AI-readiness audit checks whether AI engines can reach, read, understand, corroborate, and quote your site. The chain that has to hold before a page can be cited in an AI answer. Unlike a classic SEO audit, which grades a page's ability to rank a blue link, a readiness audit grades a page's ability to be lifted into a synthesized answer.
A typical audit scores several pillars: crawler access (do AI crawlers get HTTP 200, not a 403, past your robots.txt and CDN?), extractability (semantic structure, valid structured data, content visible without JavaScript), product data (Product/Offer schema for shopping agents), off-site corroboration (Wikipedia, Reddit, reviews), and quotability (is the answer stated first, in fact-dense, self-contained prose?).
One caveat: an audit measures readiness. The supply side. It tells you the doors are open, not that engines are walking through. Whether you're actually named and cited is a separate, more volatile signal you track over time.