Cited source
also known as: citation
A source an AI answer actually used, as distinct from one it merely fetched and discarded. The distinction is the difference between "the engine saw this page" and "the engine’s answer depends on this page", and only the second is what GEO and citation-tracking work needs to measure, because only the second is what a reader is actually being told to trust.
In AI Search API
The API returns the answer exactly as the surface rendered it, so a cited source is one the answer itself names or links inline in answer.markdown. You read the citation set straight from the text, whatever the surface actually showed, and nothing is inferred: a source counts as cited only because the captured answer points at it. Extracting and classifying those citations is your side of the work, over a stable answer field that reads the same for every surface.
"answer": {
"markdown": "Retinol is best avoided in pregnancy [acog.org].",
"text": "…"
}Related terms
See it in the product
Every definition here is enforced in the Envelope contract. Run a capture and read the fields yourself.