`You've got perfect meta descriptions, proper Open Graph tags, and a sitemap that Googlebot loves. So why does ChatGPT Search return outdated info about your app, and why does Perplexity hallucinate your pricing?
Because AI search engines don't parse the web the way Google does. They extract structured data into their reasoning context — and if your JSON-LD is missing, incomplete, or loosely typed, the AI fills gaps with whatever it thinks is correct. That's how "probably around $20/month" becomes a confident lie in a search result.
What JSON-LD Actually Does for AI
JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a way to embed structured metadata in your HTML. Traditional search engines use it for rich snippets. AI search engines use it as factual grounding — they pull your schema into their context window instead of guessing from prose.
OpenAI Search, Perplexity, and Claude-powered search all read JSON-LD <script type="application/ld+json"> blocks. Get it right, and the AI cites your exact features, pricing, and availability. Get it wrong or miss it, and the AI infers whatever it can from body text — including your competitor's data.
