§Definition AI Visibility

Citation Provenance

The record of which specific pages an AI engine cited to support a given answer.

ID
SS-DF-152
Confidence
Established · 74
Evidence
Emerging
Updated
2026-07-31

Definition

The record of which specific pages an AI engine cited to support a given answer.

Citation provenance is the source-level audit trail behind an AI answer: not merely whether a brand was mentioned, but which URLs the engine drew on to reach that conclusion. It converts AI visibility from a binary mention check into an actionable map, because each cited URL is either a page to strengthen, a listing to deepen, or a third party to pursue. Provenance is only available for web-grounded responses; an answer generated from training memory carries no source list.

Also known as

  • source provenance
  • answer provenance

Recommended next steps

    Apply the method Source Provenance Mining Framework Framework See the wider capability Citation Engineering Capability