An internal assistant answers a question about travel expenses and adds "Source: Finance Handbook." A reviewer opens the handbook. It has 42 pages, three versions in the shared drive, and no obvious section on the topic. After ten minutes, they give up and trust the answer.
That citation looked like evidence but could not be checked in practice. If reviewers cannot verify an answer quickly, they either stop checking or stop using the assistant.
Point to the passage, not the document
A useful citation takes the reader to the words that support the answer. Depending on your tools, that might be:
- A link that opens the document at the right heading or page.
- A short quoted excerpt shown next to the answer.
- A section number or clause reference people already use.
Keep the quoted excerpt short. Its job is to let someone confirm the answer, not to replace the source.
Show which version was used
Policies change. Show the document title, its last updated date, and where it lives. If the assistant can see more than one version, it should cite the approved one, and the reviewer should be able to tell which that was.
Our guide to conflicting sources in a knowledge base covers what to do when two documents disagree.
Match each claim to its source
When an answer makes several points, a single list of sources at the end is hard to check. Attach the source to the sentence or bullet it supports. If one point has no source, that should be visible rather than hidden among cited ones.
Make "no source found" an acceptable answer
An assistant that must always cite something will sometimes cite something irrelevant. Allow it to say that it found no approved source, and route those questions to a person or to the team that owns the content. Those gaps are useful: they show which documents are missing.
Test the citations, not only the answers
When you review sample outputs, check whether each citation actually supports the sentence it is attached to. Count answers that are correct but cite the wrong passage, because they teach reviewers to stop clicking. Add these cases to your AI quality test set.
A quick reviewer check
For any cited answer, a reviewer should be able to answer three questions in under a minute:
- Which passage supports this statement?
- Is that the current, approved version?
- Does the passage say what the answer claims?
If any answer is "I can't tell," fix the citation format before expanding the assistant. For help reviewing an existing assistant, email Storm Nova Labs.
