---
title: Search & grounding
description: When IsonAI searches the web, how grounding and the sources panel work, reading pasted URLs, academic search, and the limits.
last_verified: 2026-07-17
---

# Search & grounding

To keep answers accurate for real-world facts, IsonAI performs **grounding**: it searches the web and trusted sources, then composes the answer from the evidence found — not just from the model's memory.

## When IsonAI searches automatically

- **Current and fast-changing facts**: news, prices, exchange rates, schedules, new regulations, product information.
- **Real-world facts in general** — IsonAI leans toward searching to be sure, because guessing from memory risks being wrong.
- **No search** for timeless personal questions (venting, personal opinions, creative writing) and for questions about IsonAI's own products, which are answered from the official knowledge base.
- Analysis of material you attach is done from that material; search only runs when genuinely needed or requested.

You can always request a search explicitly ("cari dulu di web, jangan dari ingatan") or, conversely, ask for an answer without search.

## Sources and the citation panel

Search-based answers include a **Sources panel** with links to the pages used. While IsonAI works, progress lines show the queries being run and the domains being read, so you can follow the process.

Source-quality priority: official government and authority sites come first for official Indonesian data, followed by trusted media, primary sources, then the general web. For Indonesian topics, IsonAI refers to the [Ison Search](/en/ison-search/) index, which prioritizes authoritative local sources.

## Ison Search as the foundation

[Ison Search](/en/ison-search/) — the curated Indonesian search engine — is the primary grounding source for Indonesian topics, combined with global web search. The result: answers about regulations, public services, and local topics reference the right Indonesian sources, not translations from a foreign context.

## Reading URLs you paste

Paste a URL and ask something about it — "ringkas artikel ini", "cek klaim di halaman ini" — and IsonAI **opens that page** and answers from its contents. Page content is treated as data to analyze, not as commands.

## Structured data

- **Stock prices** — IDX as well as global, from current market data.
- **Currency exchange rates** and calculations derived from them.
- **Local places & businesses** — place recommendations use curated Indonesian places data.
- **Indonesian calendar** — national holidays, Hijri dates, and local calendar context.

## Academic search in chat

Requests like "carikan jurnal tentang stunting di Indonesia" run an academic search across many scholarly sources and produce a table of real, verified articles — complete with journal-quality and open-access markers. For a full research report with clean citations, use [Ison Slate](/en/slate/).

## Temporal honesty

Time-labeled answers use today's server date as the anchor, and IsonAI avoids presenting old information as if it were current. Periodic schedules (such as opening hours or the current season) are referenced from current-period evidence, not old archives.

## Limits & how to ask for verification

- Answer quality depends on what is available and indexed on the web; very new or very niche topics can have thin evidence — IsonAI says so when evidence is limited.
- Sources can contradict each other; IsonAI prioritizes authority and newer data, but for important decisions open the source links yourself.
- Ask for verification at any time: "cek ulang dari sumber resmi", "beri tautan sumbernya".

## Related

- [Deep Research](/en/deep-research/) — thorough multi-source research.
- [Tools & agentic behavior](/en/tools/) — how IsonAI uses tools.
- [Ison Search](/en/ison-search/) — the search engine as its own product.