Landscape · deep-dive · Schema.org

agentic-first vs Schema.org.

Schema.org is the right answer for SEO and Knowledge-Panel discovery. It is not the right answer for agent-grade diligence, and it was never designed to be. Ship both. They describe different things and don't conflict.

What Schema.org is

Schema.org is a shared vocabulary maintained by the Schema.org community (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Yandex). The core Organization and Person types let you embed structured data on a homepage as JSON-LD inside a <script type="application/ld+json"> block. Search engines parse it for rich results, Knowledge Panels, and sitelinks. Most current LLM crawlers also read it.

It does what it does very well. Adoption is universal, the rendering pipelines exist, and the vocabulary is stable enough to bet a website on. If you only ship one structured-data file, ship Schema.org.

Side-by-side

Question	Schema.org	agentic-first
Primary consumer	Search engines (Google, Bing) and general LLM crawlers	Agents doing diligence; the directory; investor / sourcing tooling
Where it lives	`<script type="application/ld+json">` in your homepage HTML	`/.well-known/agentic-profile.json` at a known path
Identity anchor	Free-form `name`, `url`, `sameAs`	Statutory IDs: `company.registry` (Companies House etc.) + `company.lei` (GLEIF), verified by the directory
Banded financials	Not modelled	Banded `funding`, `metrics.revenue_band`, `metrics.growth_band` - FCA-aware
Stage / fundraise state	Not modelled	Enum `stage.current` (Pre-Seed → Public → Acquired); banded last-round detail
Contact-channel preference	`contactPoint` array, free-form	Enum `contact.preferred_channel` (email / form / private-mcp / none)
Evidence per claim	Not modelled	`evidence[]` with JSON-Pointer in `supports` back to the field
Protected-tier surface	Not modelled	`contact.private_mcp` pointer; OAuth-scoped MCP behind your own auth
Versioning	Schema.org is loosely versioned by date; consumers tolerate drift	SemVer in `schema_version`; immutable schema URLs at `/schemas/{name}-{version}.json`
Validation feedback	Google's Rich Results Test, Schema Markup Validator	`submit_website` MCP tool returns structured errors + warnings + score-input vector

When to use which

Use Schema.org for everything a general search engine or non-specialist LLM crawler needs - your name, logo, address, social profiles, opening hours, simple contactPoint. If your goal is "show up in Google with a Knowledge Panel", this is the file.
Use agentic-first for everything a serious agent needs once it's decided your company is a candidate - jurisdiction, registry IDs, stage, banded financials, evidence, the contact channel you actually want used, and the pointer to your protected-tier MCP. If your goal is "show up correctly when an investor agent runs a sourcing brief", this is the file.

How they compose on the same homepage

Both files target the same domain root, so the recommended setup is to ship them together:

<!-- index.html - Schema.org for general discovery -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Acme Robotics",
  "url": "https://acme-robotics.example",
  "logo": "https://acme-robotics.example/logo.svg",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/acme-robotics",
    "https://github.com/acme-robotics"
  ]
}
</script>

# /.well-known/agentic-profile.json - agent-grade diligence
{
  "schema_version": "0.1.0",
  "updated_at":     "2026-04-19T00:00:00Z",
  "profile_kind":   "company",
  "tier":           "public",
  "company": {
    "name":         "Acme Robotics",
    "website":      "https://acme-robotics.example",
    "jurisdiction": "GB",
    "registry":     { "type": "companies-house", "id": "12345678",
                      "url":  "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12345678" }
  },
  "stage":   { "current": "Seed" },
  "funding": { "total_raised_band": "1m-5m", "currency": "GBP" },
  "team":    { "headcount_band": "11-50" },
  "metrics": { "revenue_band": "100k-500k", "as_of": "2026-03-31" },
  "contact": { "preferred_channel": "form",
               "form_url":   "https://acme-robotics.example/contact",
               "private_mcp":"https://private-mcp.acme-robotics.example/mcp" }
}

The two are complementary - Schema.org is read by the general web, agentic-first is read by directories, agents, and the occasional human looking at JSON. Neither file overrides the other; they describe different audiences.

The honest summary

We're not trying to compete with Schema.org and we'd be silly to. The vocabulary is older, broader, more adopted, and aimed at a different reader. What Schema.org doesn't carry - banded financials, registry-anchored identity, fundraise stage, protected-tier pointers, evidence per claim - agentic-first does. If you're publishing structured data about your company at all, ship both.

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