Structured Output (AI)

Structured output is the generation of model responses in a defined machine-readable format, such as JSON, XML, or a typed schema, rather than free-form text.

Structured outputs enable downstream systems to parse and act on agent results reliably, reduce the need for post-processing, and make output validation more precise. Many governance controls, including PII detection, content filtering, and quality scoring, are easier to apply consistently to structured outputs.

Closely related concepts include Quality Gate (AI), Agent Grading Rubric, Hallucination Rate, Ground Truth Evaluation. Each is defined in the Prefactor glossary.