How to check an AI answer in about a minute

An AI answer can read beautifully and still be wrong. The good news: you don't need to be an expert to check one. Most problems show up in a minute if you know where to look.

1. Look for sources at all

If an answer gives you facts, figures or advice with no sources, treat it as a first draft, not a finding. It might be right, but you have nothing to check it against.

2. Open one source and find the sentence

Pick the claim that matters most and open its source. Does the page actually say it? AI tools sometimes link a real page that says something different, or nothing at all on the point.

3. Ask who published it

A peer-reviewed study, a government agency, a news outlet and a forum post are not equal. None is automatically right, but they carry very different weight.

4. Count independent sources, not links

Ten articles repeating one press release are one source, not ten. If every link traces back to the same report, the answer rests on that one report.

5. Check who might gain

A company's own page about its product, or a seller's blog about what to buy, has a stake in the answer. That doesn't make it false, but it calls for a second, independent source.

6. Look at the date

Prices, rules, rates and research change. An accurate answer from a few years ago can be wrong today.

7. Notice how sure it sounds

Confidence is not evidence. A good answer separates what is known from what is estimated, and says plainly when the sources don't settle a question.

Why we built this into Telli 5

These checks work, but nobody has time to run them on every answer. That's why Telli 5 has Evidence: tap it on an answer and Telli 5 finds sources, grades each one, sets aside copies of the same story, and has two separate AI checkers compare each cited sentence with its source. You still see every source, so you can always check for yourself.

See how Evidence works

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