Grounding
Grounding — Grounding is connecting an AI model's answer to verifiable external sources — search results, databases, or documents — so its claims are anchored in real, current information rather than generated from memory alone.
A grounded answer is one the model can point to a source for. Assistants ground their responses to reduce errors and to answer questions about recent or local facts their training never covered — which is exactly the case for 'who's the best business near me right now'.
Grounding is the friend of any business doing GEO. Because grounded answers pull from live, citable sources, improving your presence on those sources is a direct path into the answer — and often into the citation list beneath it.
Key points
- →Anchors answers to external, checkable sources.
- →Enables current, local recommendations and citations.
- →The grounding sources are what GEO work targets.
Related terms
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