What Google says
Google's AI features documentation is direct on this. It says there is "no special schema.org structured data that you need to add" for AI Overviews or AI Mode. The same guidance says the usual advice applies: make pages people find useful, keep them crawlable, and use structured data where it supports a rich result you want.
That is the vendor of the product telling you the lever is not there.
What the Ahrefs comparison found
Ahrefs compared 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD structured data against roughly 4,000 matched control pages that did not. AI Overview citations on the pages that added schema went down 4.6%.
I do not read that as proof that schema hurts. The pages that added schema were probably the pages someone was already worried about. I read it as proof that adding schema is not the lever. If it were, 1,885 pages would have shown it.
Why I still put it on every page
Schema does jobs that have nothing to do with AI Overviews. Those jobs are still worth doing.
- Rich results. FAQ, breadcrumb, product and event markup can change how a listing looks in ordinary search. That is where most of your clicks still come from.
- Entity clarity. A Person, an Organisation or a LocalBusiness with a consistent name, address and identifiers makes it easier for any system to tell you apart from the business two suburbs over with a similar name.
- Catching your own mistakes. Writing the schema forces you to state the facts once. On my last build, rewriting the schema is where the clinic count was settled to one answer on every page.
Bet Better, my own sports analytics product, carries a 13-identifier entity graph including a researcher ID and public knowledge-base entries. That is for identity rather than for AI Overviews.
What I will not bill you for
Schema is included in every build, every package and the Answer Engine Audit at A$1,500 + GST. It appears in the audit as a gap analysis, because inconsistent or missing markup is a defect worth listing. It does not appear on any invoice as a line item. It is not the reason to buy the audit.
If a proposal lists AI schema or AEO structured data with a price next to it, ask for the document that says the engine reads it. The one document Google has published says the opposite.
What moves citations instead
The things that decide whether an answer engine names you are simpler than a new markup vocabulary.
- Crawlers can reach the page. Check robots.txt for AI crawlers blocked by an old rule.
- The answer sits in the first paragraph under a heading shaped like the question. Retrieval scores paragraphs.
- The facts match everywhere they appear, on your site and off it.
- The third-party pages the engine already cites in your category describe you accurately, or at all.
AI search tracking at A$249 a month + GST will tell you whether any of it moved. The generative-AI report in your own Search Console will tell you for free. I explain how to read it on how I measure.