The verdict
Google says structured data isn’t required for its AI features and there is no special markup to add. Schema still earns rich results where Google offers them, and that list keeps shrinking. Mark up what is true and visible, for the results it unlocks. Most of the markup I check is broken anyway.
“We will add schema so AI understands your business” is a line in a great many AI visibility proposals. It is an appealing line, because schema is concrete. You can see it, validate it and tick it off, which is more than can be said for most of what is being sold.
It is also the line Google’s own guidance contradicts most directly.
What Google says
Google’s guide to generative AI in Search: “Structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, and there’s no special schema.org markup you need to add.” Its AI features documentation says the same in different words: “There’s also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add.”
The pages used in AI Overviews and AI Mode come from the Search index through the ordinary ranking systems. Markup does not change which page is the best answer.
What schema is still for
Rich results. Star ratings on a product, prices, event dates, a recipe card. Markup makes a page eligible for those features, and that is a real benefit where the feature exists.
The list has been getting shorter. Google limited FAQ rich results to government and health sites in August 2023, and HowTo results went a month later. In May 2026 the FAQ feature was removed altogether. A lot of the markup added in the last few years now unlocks nothing.
The rule that has not changed is the one that matters. Google’s structured data policies say markup must be “a true representation of the page content”, and “Don’t mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page.”
What I find when I actually check it
The markup on small business sites is rarely wrong in an interesting way. It is wrong in a boring, total way.
- Types that do not exist. On chiropractic sites the commonest markup declares the business a
Chiropractor. That is not a schema.org type. MedicalBusiness lists 23 subtypes and neither Chiropractor nor Chiropractic is one of them, so the validator rejects the type and the whole business node is thrown away. Every plugin and generator that emits it ships a dead node. - Reviews marked up on the business’s own site. If the business controls the reviews about itself, Google’s review snippet rules make that page ineligible for stars. The markup does nothing except sit there.
- Builder defaults nobody chose. A site builder emits a generic business node with half the fields empty, and nobody ever looks at it because nothing on the page changes.
None of that is fixed by adding more markup for AI. It is fixed by deciding what the page actually is and describing that accurately.
Where it sits in my list
Last. Not because it is useless, but because everything above it changes rankings and this mostly does not. Crawlability, indexing, the content itself and the internal links come first. Then markup, for the rich results the site can genuinely earn, checked against the validator, with nothing invented.
It is one of several things sold as AI optimisation that Google’s guidance says you do not need. The rest are in what Google says about AI Overviews and the Search index.
The short version
- Google says schema isn’t required for AI features. No special markup to add.
- Schema is for rich results. Where they still exist.
- The rich result list keeps shrinking. FAQ results were removed entirely in May 2026.
- Mark up only what is true and visible. That rule has not changed.
- Most small business markup is broken. Invented types, self-serving reviews, builder defaults.
- Do it last. After the things that change rankings.
If a site should be ranking and it isn’t, that’s the work I do. If you are weighing an AI or schema proposal and want a second opinion on what it will actually change, that’s what SEO consulting is for.
