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Do not treat AI-generated factual claims as verified. Check each important claim against the original or another authoritative source, confirm that any cited evidence supports the claim, and make sure time-sensitive information is current. Give extra scrutiny to claims that could affect a financial, legal, medical, safety, or other consequential decision.
How to fact-check AI-generated work
Use this workflow before you rely on, share, submit, or publish AI-generated writing. It applies whether the output includes citations or sounds certain: plausibility and confident wording are not evidence.
- Break the text into checkable claims. Mark dates, figures, names, quotations, explanations of cause and effect, rules, and statements about what a source says. Split sentences that make several assertions so you can verify each one separately. The House of Commons Library guidance on working with AI and spotting AI-generated text recommends checking individual facts such as dates, figures, and quotations.
- Find evidence independently. Search for the claim itself rather than accepting the AI’s explanation or source list. Prefer evidence close to the original: for example, the underlying dataset, legislation, regulator, government department, research paper, or institution with relevant expertise. Guidance from the University of Nevada, Reno also recommends confirming claims in authoritative sources.
- Open every important citation. Search for the cited publication or document directly. Check that it exists, locate the relevant passage, and decide whether it supports the exact claim—not merely the general topic. A genuine source can be misquoted, taken out of context, or linked to a claim it does not establish.
- Check quotations and numbers at their origin. Compare quoted wording with the original and read enough of the surrounding material to understand its meaning. Trace a statistic to its publisher and publication year; do not repeat a figure just because it appears in AI output. OpenAI’s guidance on ChatGPT accuracy advises checking quotes and data.
- Check whether the information is current. Look at the source’s date and ask whether the fact might have changed. This is especially important for current events, laws and regulations, financial or product details, prices, schedules, and recent statistics.
- Seek independent confirmation when the claim matters. For important, contested, or hard-to-interpret claims, compare another reputable source. Independent confirmation is strongest when the second source relies on its own evidence rather than repeating the same statement.
- Record what you could not verify. If reliable evidence is missing or sources disagree, do not present the AI’s wording as established fact. State the uncertainty clearly. For consequential decisions, consult a qualified professional with relevant expertise.
How much checking is enough?
Match the time you spend verifying a claim to the consequences of getting it wrong. A low-impact background detail may need a lighter check than information that could influence a personal-finance choice, legal obligation, medical decision, safety action, or professional judgment. University of Nevada, Reno guidance recommends considering a claim’s importance and real-world impact; institutional library guidance also emphasizes meaningful human oversight when AI output affects public services or decisions.
- Check more deeply when the claim could cause financial loss, harm, legal trouble, or a consequential decision.
- Look for stronger evidence when a claim is contested, surprising, precise, or difficult to interpret.
- Ask a qualified human when the decision requires professional expertise or the evidence remains ambiguous.
What a citation, confident tone, or detector can—and cannot—tell you
A citation is a starting point, not proof
A reference only helps if the source exists and its content supports the statement. Open it and inspect the relevant passage rather than trusting the citation as presented. Both the University of Nevada, Reno guidance and OpenAI’s accuracy guidance recommend checking sources or claims directly.
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Confidence does not establish truth
The claim and its evidence are what need checking. Polished prose, detail, or certainty cannot substitute for a reliable source.
AI-authorship detection is a different task
An authorship or synthetic-content detector does not establish whether a document’s factual claims are true. NIST’s AI evaluation work considers system behavior, including generators and discriminators that assess AI authorship or believability. NIST also discusses synthetic-content provenance, labeling, detection, and auditing as transparency approaches. Those tasks are distinct from verifying the evidence behind an individual claim.
There is no single accuracy percentage that applies to all AI work
No universal accuracy rate applies across models, subjects, prompts, and types of output. NIST describes measurement and evaluation as important for understanding AI system performance, and its Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile, published July 26, 2024, addresses trustworthiness risks and practices for generative AI. If someone gives you an accuracy percentage, ask which system and task it measures, under what test conditions, using what metric, and on what date. Without that context, the figure may not tell you whether a particular answer is reliable.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Use AI as an aid, not the final authority
The House of Commons Library puts the distinction this way: “It can support research and analysis, but it cannot replace professional judgement, subject expertise or trusted information sources.” — House of Commons Library, Working with AI and spotting AI-generated text.
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