A structured offer is a clear, machine-readable description of a merchant's specific offer.
It tells software what is being offered, who provides it, and what a user can do next. This makes it easier for AI products to understand and compare commercial options without relying only on page copy. The merchant still confirms live price, availability, eligibility, and final terms.
Structured offers in AON
AON returns eligible structured Offers that an AI product can evaluate and render in its own experience. The selected delivery contract defines the next action and attribution behavior, while the merchant confirms transaction-time facts.
Review the Offer Query contractWhy structured offers help AI recommend products
A landing page is written for people. A structured offer gives participating AI products a clear, consistent way to use the commercial information.
| Concept | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Clear information | The product, merchant, conditions, and next step are clear instead of being inferred from marketing copy. |
| Comparable options | AI products can compare relevant offers using the same kinds of information. |
| A connected next step | The selected offer can carry its destination and, where relevant, its tracking context when a user continues. |
- Structured offer is a descriptive category, not a claim that every commerce platform uses one shared schema.
- A structured offer supports discovery and recommendation, but the merchant still confirms live price, availability, eligibility, and final transaction terms.
Structured offer data and an Offer payload
A structured offer describes the commercial information. An Offer payload is one populated instance of that information returned under a particular delivery contract. See the Offer payload definition.
Example in practice
A software company wants its team plan to be recommended when someone asks an AI assistant for project-management software. Its structured offer gives the assistant the plan, merchant, category, destination, and relevant commercial terms in a consistent format. The assistant can compare it with other suitable offers and decide whether to recommend it without scraping the company’s landing page.
Common questions about structured offer
Does structured offer data guarantee AI recommendations?
No. Structured data makes an offer easier for an AI system to understand and compare, but it does not guarantee that an AI product will retrieve, show, rank, or recommend it. Each product still applies its own relevance, eligibility, and presentation decisions, while the merchant remains responsible for final transaction facts.
Is a structured offer the same as a product record?
No. A product record describes an item or service. A structured offer represents a seller-specific commercial proposal and can include its merchant, action, attribution identity, and qualifying outcome terms. With AON, a returned Offer carries this commercial meaning alongside the action and Goal semantics needed for the selected delivery and attribution contract.
Is structured offer data the same as an Offer schema?
No. The schema defines the permitted structure and field semantics. Structured offer data is the commercial information represented under that schema. For AON integrations, the selected AgentOffer contract defines how the returned Offer must be interpreted; a consumer should validate that contract rather than infer meaning from similarly named fields.
Does a structured offer confirm price and availability?
No. It represents the information available during discovery. The merchant or checkout system remains authoritative for current price, availability, eligibility, and binding terms.
Sources
- AgentOffer ProtocolAON documentation
- AON Offer Query APIAON documentation
- AgentOffer Protocol sourceAON specification
- Schema.org OfferRelated standard
- Google product structured dataIndustry source