diff --git a/frigate/config/config.py b/frigate/config/config.py
index b2373fdcc..97fe9f8ee 100644
--- a/frigate/config/config.py
+++ b/frigate/config/config.py
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ from .logger import LoggerConfig
 from .mqtt import MqttConfig
 from .notification import NotificationConfig
 from .proxy import ProxyConfig
-from .semantic_search import SemanticSearchConfig
+from .semantic_search import FaceRecognitionConfig, SemanticSearchConfig
 from .telemetry import TelemetryConfig
 from .tls import TlsConfig
 from .ui import UIConfig
@@ -159,6 +159,16 @@ class RestreamConfig(BaseModel):
     model_config = ConfigDict(extra="allow")
 
 
+def verify_semantic_search_dependent_configs(config: FrigateConfig) -> None:
+    """Verify that semantic search is enabled if required features are enabled."""
+    if not config.semantic_search.enabled:
+        if config.genai.enabled:
+            raise ValueError("Genai requires semantic search to be enabled.")
+
+        if config.face_recognition.enabled:
+            raise ValueError("Face recognition requires semantic to be enabled.")
+
+
 def verify_config_roles(camera_config: CameraConfig) -> None:
     """Verify that roles are setup in the config correctly."""
     assigned_roles = list(
@@ -316,6 +326,9 @@ class FrigateConfig(FrigateBaseModel):
     semantic_search: SemanticSearchConfig = Field(
         default_factory=SemanticSearchConfig, title="Semantic search configuration."
     )
+    face_recognition: FaceRecognitionConfig = Field(
+        default_factory=FaceRecognitionConfig, title="Face recognition config."
+    )
     ui: UIConfig = Field(default_factory=UIConfig, title="UI configuration.")
 
     # Detector config
@@ -621,6 +634,7 @@ class FrigateConfig(FrigateBaseModel):
             detector_config.model.compute_model_hash()
             self.detectors[key] = detector_config
 
+        verify_semantic_search_dependent_configs(self)
         return self
 
     @field_validator("cameras")
diff --git a/frigate/config/semantic_search.py b/frigate/config/semantic_search.py
index 32ff8cf3c..7ffdbd137 100644
--- a/frigate/config/semantic_search.py
+++ b/frigate/config/semantic_search.py
@@ -7,6 +7,16 @@ from .base import FrigateBaseModel
 __all__ = ["FaceRecognitionConfig", "SemanticSearchConfig"]
 
 
+class SemanticSearchConfig(FrigateBaseModel):
+    enabled: bool = Field(default=False, title="Enable semantic search.")
+    reindex: Optional[bool] = Field(
+        default=False, title="Reindex all detections on startup."
+    )
+    model_size: str = Field(
+        default="small", title="The size of the embeddings model used."
+    )
+
+
 class FaceRecognitionConfig(FrigateBaseModel):
     enabled: bool = Field(default=False, title="Enable face recognition.")
     threshold: float = Field(
@@ -15,16 +25,3 @@ class FaceRecognitionConfig(FrigateBaseModel):
     min_area: int = Field(
         default=500, title="Min area of face box to consider running face recognition."
     )
-
-
-class SemanticSearchConfig(FrigateBaseModel):
-    enabled: bool = Field(default=False, title="Enable semantic search.")
-    reindex: Optional[bool] = Field(
-        default=False, title="Reindex all detections on startup."
-    )
-    face_recognition: FaceRecognitionConfig = Field(
-        default_factory=FaceRecognitionConfig, title="Face recognition config."
-    )
-    model_size: str = Field(
-        default="small", title="The size of the embeddings model used."
-    )
diff --git a/frigate/embeddings/embeddings.py b/frigate/embeddings/embeddings.py
index 6b0f94ca9..01b584e43 100644
--- a/frigate/embeddings/embeddings.py
+++ b/frigate/embeddings/embeddings.py
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ from numpy import ndarray
 from playhouse.shortcuts import model_to_dict
 
 from frigate.comms.inter_process import InterProcessRequestor
-from frigate.config.semantic_search import SemanticSearchConfig
+from frigate.config import FrigateConfig
 from frigate.const import (
     CONFIG_DIR,
     FACE_DIR,
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ class Embeddings:
     """SQLite-vec embeddings database."""
 
     def __init__(
-        self, config: SemanticSearchConfig, db: SqliteVecQueueDatabase
+        self, config: FrigateConfig, db: SqliteVecQueueDatabase
     ) -> None:
         self.config = config
         self.db = db
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ class Embeddings:
             "jinaai/jina-clip-v1-text_model_fp16.onnx",
             "jinaai/jina-clip-v1-tokenizer",
             "jinaai/jina-clip-v1-vision_model_fp16.onnx"
-            if config.model_size == "large"
+            if config.semantic_search.model_size == "large"
             else "jinaai/jina-clip-v1-vision_model_quantized.onnx",
             "jinaai/jina-clip-v1-preprocessor_config.json",
         ]
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ class Embeddings:
             download_urls={
                 "text_model_fp16.onnx": "https://huggingface.co/jinaai/jina-clip-v1/resolve/main/onnx/text_model_fp16.onnx",
             },
-            model_size=config.model_size,
+            model_size=config.semantic_search.model_size,
             model_type=ModelTypeEnum.text,
             requestor=self.requestor,
             device="CPU",
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ class Embeddings:
 
         model_file = (
             "vision_model_fp16.onnx"
-            if self.config.model_size == "large"
+            if self.config.semantic_search.model_size == "large"
             else "vision_model_quantized.onnx"
         )
 
diff --git a/frigate/embeddings/maintainer.py b/frigate/embeddings/maintainer.py
index 38e166ca8..737dc3c22 100644
--- a/frigate/embeddings/maintainer.py
+++ b/frigate/embeddings/maintainer.py
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ class EmbeddingMaintainer(threading.Thread):
     ) -> None:
         super().__init__(name="embeddings_maintainer")
         self.config = config
-        self.embeddings = Embeddings(config.semantic_search, db)
+        self.embeddings = Embeddings(config, db)
 
         # Check if we need to re-index events
         if config.semantic_search.reindex:
@@ -62,9 +62,7 @@ class EmbeddingMaintainer(threading.Thread):
         self.frame_manager = SharedMemoryFrameManager()
 
         # set face recognition conditions
-        self.face_recognition_enabled = (
-            self.config.semantic_search.face_recognition.enabled
-        )
+        self.face_recognition_enabled = self.config.face_recognition.enabled
         self.requires_face_detection = "face" not in self.config.model.all_attributes
         self.detected_faces: dict[str, float] = {}