FAQ

How do you check whether an AI answer is grounded in the source?

Check grounding by tracing each important sentence back to the source material. Mark whether it is quoted, paraphrased, inferred, assumed or unsupported. Keep the answer only if the core claims are source-supported and any useful inference is clearly labelled and caveated.

June 17, 2026Last reviewed June 17, 20261 min readHow-to

Direct answer

Check grounding by tracing each important sentence back to the source material. Mark whether it is quoted, paraphrased, inferred, assumed or unsupported. Keep the answer only if the core claims are source-supported and any useful inference is clearly labelled and caveated.

Why this matters

This is a practical operator page. It turns the Choice Engine method into a repeatable QA check for drafts, knowledge-pack outputs and site articles.

How to use it

  • Highlight the answer’s important claims.
  • Find the matching source sentence, table, example or decision.
  • Label unmatched claims as inference, assumption or defect.
  • Check whether the answer changed the source meaning.
  • Approve, patch or reject based on the grounding status.

Example

If a draft says “FAQ schema improves rankings”, the review should fail it. The source may support using structured data correctly, but Google does not guarantee rich-result display or ranking improvement from markup.

Caveats and limits

Source-grounded does not automatically mean true forever. Current guidance, product behaviour, pricing, law and technical facts still need freshness checks.