Learn AI · Level 1 · Foundations · step 9 of 21 · word 2 of 3
What is grounding in AI?
Grounding means an AI answers from real sources it was given or looked up, such as a web search or your document, instead of only from what it learned in training.
In plain English
A chatbot’s built-in knowledge stops at its knowledge cutoff and can be patchy. Grounding gives it something real to work from first: search results, a company’s help pages or a file you upload. The answer is then based on those sources, and often links to them.
An example
You ask “What’s the weather in Mumbai tomorrow?” A chatbot without search can only guess. With web search switched on, it looks up a forecast and shows you where the answer came from.
What to watch out for
Grounding cuts down on made-up answers but doesn’t remove them. The AI can still misread a source or cite the wrong page, so open the links for anything important. See how to check an AI answer.