Glossary/AI Search & Emerging/Really Simple Licensing (RSL)
AI Search & Emerging
Really Simple Licensing (RSL)
An open standard, finalized in 2025, that adds machine-readable licensing and payment terms for AI use to a site's robots.txt.
By Brandon Mina·CEO, BrandPilot AI·Updated November 2026
Short answer
Really Simple Licensing (RSL) is an open standard, finalized in 2025, that adds machine-readable licensing and payment terms for AI use to a website's robots.txt. Publishers can specify whether AI companies may use their content and under what conditions, such as attribution or payment, giving a structured basis for AI content licensing.