Combining with the small-large black hole phase transition, the thermodynamic geometry has been well applied to study the microstructure for the charged anti-de Sitter (AdS) black hole. In this paper, we extend the geometric approach to the rotating Kerr-AdS black hole and aim to develop a general approach for the Kerr-AdS black hole. Treating the entropy and pressure as the fluctuation coordinates, we construct the Ruppeiner geometry for the Kerr-AdS black hole by making use of the Christodoulou-Ruffini-like squaredmass formula, which is quite different from the charged case. Employing the empirical observation of the corresponding scalar curvature, we find that, for the near-extremal Kerr-AdS black hole, the repulsive interaction dominates among its microstructure, while for far-from-extremal Kerr-AdS black hole, the attractive interaction dominates. The critical phenomenon is also observed for the scalar curvature. These results uncover the characteristic microstructure of the Kerr-AdS black hole. Such general thermodynamic geometry approach is worth generalizing to other rotating AdS black holes, and more interesting microstructure is expected to be discovered.