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Glossary

Structured Output (AI)

Reviewed 9 April 2026 Canonical definition

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.