Grounding
When an AI checks live sources before answering, instead of relying only on what it learned in training.
In plain English
Grounded answers are based on pages the AI just read, which is why they come with citations. Most AI search features ground their answers, so your current website and listings feed directly into what they say.
In practice
Ask Perplexity about a restaurant’s hours and it reads the restaurant’s site and Google listing before answering.
GroundingvsTraining data
Grounding uses live sources at answer time. Training data is what the model learned before release.
Related terms
How AI reads the webPro Retrieval-augmented generationRAG Fetching relevant documents first, then writing an answer from them. It is how most AI search works. In practice, and related terms → Citations & visibilityStarter Citation A source an AI answer links to or credits. For buyers who ask AI, it is the new page one. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webStarter Training data The large collection of text an AI model learned from before it was released. In practice, and related terms →