Is this AI actually searching the web or making it up?
Models toggle between 'trained up to a date' and 'live web searching'. The difference is current vs stale info.
Try this first
- 1Check the mode. ChatGPT with web search or browsing on, Claude with the web tool, Gemini with Google integration. Without that mode: training knowledge only.
- 2When in doubt ask for source URLs and open them. Did you get a URL or only a title? A URL is gold, a title may be invented.
- 3For 'what happened this week' without web mode you get stale info with a confident tone. Enable search or do not ask this model.
- 4For internal data: web search is not what you want, you want grounding on your own documents (Copilot, Claude Projects).
- 5Training-cutoff date per model: in the docs. Asking the model itself is unreliable, models lie about it.
When to bring us in
AI gave a current claim that turned out wrong and you acted on it: stop, scope the damage, mail us if a customer is impacted.
See also
- Can I paste a customer file or email into ChatGPT?Depends on the account and settings. Free ChatGPT and a Team tenant behave very differently from what most people assume.
- I want a one-page AI policy for my teamA real one-pager beats a thick document nobody reads. Four headers and concrete examples.
- How do I tell if an AI answer is made up?Models sound confident even when they are wrong. A few habits catch most mistakes.
None of the above fits?
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