How to Check AI Answers
AI tools can be wrong — confidently, plausibly, and sometimes dangerously. This guide gives you a practical system for knowing what to verify, how to verify it, and when you can trust AI output without checking.
What needs checking?
Specific statistics and percentages, named sources and citations, dates and timelines, medical or legal information, contact details or URLs, technical specifications, and anything you plan to publish or share publicly.
Verification workflow
1. Identify the checkable claims — mark every fact presented. 2. Go to primary sources — find the original study or official website. 3. Check the date — AI has a training cutoff and may be out of date. 4. Notice what's missing — AI can be accurate but misleading by omission.
Red flags
Highly specific numbers, named academic papers (AI frequently invents plausible-sounding citations), claims about recent events, and confident answers to contested questions should all trigger verification.
Related: How to Use AI Well • Compare AI Tools