Proof
The verbatim sentences AI engines wrote about you, with the engine and the date attached. The strongest evidence in the product.
Every other lens gives you a count, and a count asks you to trust our counting. Proof does not ask for trust. It shows you the sentence an engine wrote, which engine wrote it, and when.
What you'll learn
- What Proof shows and how it is ordered
- Why a citation can be counted with no sentence attached
- How to use a quote without misusing it
What it shows
The most recent answers that cited you, over a rolling 90 day evidence window. Each row carries:
- the sentence that named you, quoted from the stored answer
- which surface wrote it
- the date it was checked
Rows are ordered by recency rather than by quality, because recency is the claim being made: these are the most recent answers that cited you. When there are more than fit, the panel says the list is truncated rather than quietly cutting it.
Only answers that cited you
An answer that did not cite you is not proof of citation, whatever else it says. If you want to see where you were absent, that is the Prompts grid and the Platforms panel. Proof is the affirmative record.
Why the sentence is sometimes missing
"This answer cited you" and "here is the sentence that named you" are two different claims, and the second one is allowed to be absent.
A citation can be established by evidence a text search cannot point at: your website URL appearing, your phone number appearing, a product of yours named without your company name beside it. In those cases the citation is real and there is no single sentence that says your name, so no sentence is quoted. The row still carries the engine and the date, and the full answer is still behind it.
This is the difference between an honest quote and a manufactured one. A tool that always produces a sentence is either paraphrasing or guessing. If there is no naming sentence, you are told.
Using a quote well
- Date it. A quote with no date beside it is undated evidence, and engines change their answers. The date travels with the row for exactly this reason, so carry it into your slide.
- Name the surface. "AI says we are the leading provider" is marketing. "Perplexity said this on 8 September" is evidence.
- Do not stitch quotes together. Two half-sentences from two engines is a sentence neither of them wrote.
- Check the negative ones. Being named is not the same as being recommended. An answer that names you in order to steer readers elsewhere is recorded as a negative mention and is not counted as a citation. Those are the most valuable sentences in the product and the ones nobody wants to read.
Try this in Outercite
Ask the assistant "Show me the exact sentences AI wrote about us." Read the three most recent and check whether the description an engine gives of you is the one you would give.
Related
How verification works
Why a sentence has to clear a bar before it is counted at all.
Sources
Which pages fed the answers these sentences came from.
Data definitions
The evidence window, and what each metric counts.
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