Research · Ongoing / Retrieval & Knowledge Systems
What makes a retrieved answer trustworthy?
Retrieval quality, grounding and citation in knowledge systems
An answer is only as good as the passages behind it. This ongoing work looks at what retrieval has to get right before generation begins.
CATALNEXT LabPublished Updated 2 min read
The question
When a system answers from an organization's documents, what has to be true for a reader to trust the answer?
Why it matters
A fluent answer and a correct answer look the same on the screen. In a knowledge system the difference is decided earlier, by which passages were retrieved and whether the answer stays faithful to them.
What we are looking at
- How documents should be divided and indexed so that a retrieved passage carries enough context to be understood on its own.
- How searching by meaning and searching by keyword complement each other.
- How citations should be attached so a reader can move from a sentence to its source.
- How a system should respond when its sources do not contain the answer.
Where this goes
This work informs ARQVANTA AI, our knowledge and intelligence platform.