Sign-up, booking and lead forms AI agents can finish

"Book me a table for four on Friday." "Get me a quote for a new roof." "Sign me up for the free trial." More of these requests now go to an AI assistant instead of a search box, and the assistant has to finish the form on your site. If it can't, the lead goes to a competitor whose form it can. This guide covers sign-up, booking and lead forms, and the steps where agents most often get stuck.

Why forms are where agents give up

Reading a page is easy for an AI agent. Finishing a form is not. Every field has to be matched to something the person asked for, every choice has to be made, and every step has to confirm that it worked. Forms also tend to carry the things built to stop bots: CAPTCHAs, email verification and one-time codes.

None of this means removing your defenses. It means designing the form so an agent can do the routine part, and handing over to the person at the moments that genuinely need them.

The basics every form needs

• A visible label on every field. Agents match "my phone number" to a field called "Phone number". Placeholder text alone is a weak substitute. See buttons, links and forms agents can use.
• The right field types and autocomplete values. type="email", type="tel", autocomplete="given-name", postal-code and organization tell an agent exactly what each field wants.
• Only the fields you need. Every optional field is another chance to guess wrong. Ask for the rest after the lead or booking is in.
• Native controls for choices. Real <select> menus, radio buttons and checkboxes, not custom dropdowns built from <div>s.
• Errors written as text next to the field. "Enter a phone number with area code" tells the agent what to fix. A red border doesn't.
• A clear confirmation. After submitting, show a page or message that says what happened: "Thanks, Sam. Your table for 4 is booked for Friday 10 October at 7:30 pm. Reference NW-4821." The agent can read that back to the person. A toast that disappears after two seconds can't be.

Sign-up forms

For software companies, sign-up is the conversion. An agent asked to "start a trial" needs to find the sign-up page, fill it in and reach a confirmed account, or at least a clear next step for the person.

• Link to sign-up from every page. A real link with clear text ("Start free trial"), not a button that opens a modal only after a script loads. AgentScore checks that agents can find and press your sign-up button.
• Keep password rules on the page. State them before the field ("At least 12 characters"), not only in an error after submit.
• Make "Sign up with Google" an option, not the only route. Third-party sign-in opens a pop-up on another domain that many agents can't or shouldn't use. An email option keeps the door open.
• Don't hide sign-up behind a sales call. If your plans need a conversation, say so in text, and offer a booking form the agent can complete.

Email verification and one-time codes

An agent working on someone's behalf usually can't read their inbox or their text messages, and you wouldn't want it to have that access by default. So any step that says "enter the code we just sent" is a handoff point. Handle it well:

1. Let people do as much as possible before verification. Create the account, save the booking request or record the lead first, then ask for confirmation. If the agent stops at the verification step, the work isn't lost.
2. Say clearly what happens next. "We've sent a link to sam@example.com. Click it to activate your account." The agent can pass that message straight to the person.
3. Prefer a link over a short-lived code. A link the person clicks later works across devices and doesn't expire while the agent reports back. If you use codes, give them a sensible lifetime and a "resend" button with a name.
4. Mark code fields properly. autocomplete="one-time-code" and inputmode="numeric" on a single field are easier for people and agents than six separate boxes.

CAPTCHAs on forms

A CAPTCHA on every submission stops AI agents as surely as it stops spam bots. Most sites don't need one on every form. Better options:

• Risk-based challenges that only appear for suspicious submissions, such as many attempts from one address in a short time.
• Invisible checks like honeypot fields and rate limits, which stop crude bots without asking anyone to solve a puzzle.
• Recognizing verified agents. Some agents sign their requests with Web Bot Auth, and services such as Cloudflare can let verified bots through.

AgentScore checks for a CAPTCHA or challenge when an agent arrives on your site, and at the cart and checkout. See bot protection and CAPTCHAs for the full picture.

Booking forms and date pickers

Booking is where custom widgets cause the most trouble. A calendar that only works by clicking tiny cells, or a time-slot grid of unlabelled boxes, leaves an agent guessing.

Element	Hard for agents	Easy for agents
Date	Custom calendar pop-up with no labels on days	<input type="date">, or a calendar whose days are buttons named "Friday 10 October, available"
Time	Grid of colored boxes	Radio buttons or a list of buttons named "7:30 pm"
Availability	Grayed-out slots with no text	Disabled options with a reason: "7:00 pm, fully booked"
Party size or service	Plus and minus icons only	A <select> or number field with a label

Also make availability readable as text where you can, for example a list of open times on the page. An assistant answering "is there anything Friday evening?" can then answer without driving the widget at all.

<fieldset>
  <legend>Time on Friday 10 October</legend>
  <label><input type="radio" name="time" value="19:00" disabled> 7:00 pm (fully booked)</label>
  <label><input type="radio" name="time" value="19:30"> 7:30 pm</label>
  <label><input type="radio" name="time" value="20:00"> 8:00 pm</label>
</fieldset>

If your booking runs inside a third-party widget in an iframe, test it. Some booking providers build accessible widgets and some don't, and you inherit whatever they ship.

Quote and lead forms

• Split long forms into clear steps with a heading per step and a named "Next" button. Show where the agent is: "Step 2 of 3: Your project".
• Avoid free-text-only questions where a set of options would do. "Roof type" as radio buttons is easier to answer correctly than a blank box.
• Make consent explicit. Marketing opt-ins should be unticked checkboxes with clear labels. An agent should only tick them if the person asked it to.
• Give a real response time. "We'll reply within one working day" is something the agent can tell the person. "Someone will be in touch" isn't much help.

Plan the handoff to the person

Some steps belong to the person: paying a deposit, accepting terms that bind them, confirming an email address, or signing in with a password only they know. Agents generally stop and hand back at these points, and that's how it should be. Your job is to make the handoff smooth:

• Keep what the agent entered. A booking or form that survives a pause, ideally at its own URL, lets the person pick up where the agent left off.
• Put the handoff step on its own page with a clear heading, such as "Confirm your booking", so the agent knows it has done its part.
• Show a summary of everything entered before the final step, so the person can check it quickly.

How Ghost Agent Labs helps

AgentScore checks the parts of this you can see from the outside: form fields are labelled, buttons and links have names, pop-ups can be dismissed, there's no CAPTCHA on arrival, and agents can find your sign-up or add-to-cart button. Ghost Agents go further: they run the journey itself, such as sign-up or a contact form, with test data you supply, on a schedule, and show a step-by-step replay when it breaks. They don't submit payments, and the sign-up template stops short of email confirmation.

Forms are only half of task completion. For stores, the other half is checkout and guest checkout.