JSON-LD vs Microdata vs RDFa: Which Structured Data Format AI Shopping Agents Parse Best in 2026
JSON-LD is the structured data format that AI shopping agents parse most efficiently because it delivers a complete, self-contained product entity in a single JSON block requiring one parsing pass, while Microdata and RDFa force agents to traverse scattered DOM elements and reconstruct entity relationships from attribute annotations embedded across the page. Google has recommended JSON-LD as its preferred structured data format since 2014, and as of August 2026, 54.8% of all websites use JSON-LD according to w3techs. But the SEO rationale you already know is only half the story. The other half is how AI shopping agents like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode actually ingest and parse your product data, and why the format you choose directly affects whether your products get recommended. ...