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AI at Work

Module 3 — Reading, Meetings and Numbers

Lesson 7: Research With Sources You Can Check

Last updated: 2026-10-09

Deep research tools can read dozens of pages and write a tidy report in minutes. The report is only as good as its sources, and you need to open them. Plan the sources, demand links, and check the claims that matter.

Lesson 7: Research With Sources You Can Check

Blackboard

No link, no claim

12 min
Concept 1

Search mode versus memory

When an assistant answers from its training alone, it may be out of date or wrong, and it won't show where the answer came from. Search and deep research modes look things up and cite pages. For anything current (prices, rules, who runs what, what a competitor launched), use a mode that searches and shows sources.

Concept 2

Plan the sources

Before you start, decide what good sources look like: the regulator's own page rather than a blog about it, the company's annual report rather than a summary, recent rather than old. Tell the AI. Our Plan the Sources Before You Research prompt helps you set this out, and it changes the quality of the report more than any wording trick.

Concept 3

Check the citations

Open the links for every claim you will rely on. Does the page exist? Does it say what the report says it says? Is it recent? AI tools still produce citations that don't support the claim, and sometimes ones that don't exist. In Mata v. Avianca (2023), lawyers were fined after filing a brief with court cases ChatGPT had invented.

Concept 4

Your own documents as sources

For internal research, tools such as Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM), ChatGPT and Claude Projects can answer from files you upload, with references to the passages they used. That keeps answers grounded in your material. They can still miss or misread sources, so check the quoted passage for anything important.

Pause and Think

Think of a fact you passed on at work recently. Could you point to where it came from if someone asked?

Flashcards

Key Terms

Click or press Enter to flip a card. Review these before the practice question.

Additional Resources
Practice Question

A deep research report says a new regulation starts on 1 March and gives a link. What should you do before putting it in a client email?

Does not count for certificate
Choose one answer, use the hint if needed, then check your answer.
Use the hint before checking if you need a nudge.