Source Citations & Verification

How Citations Work

When Sevrel answers a question from your documents, it is instructed to attribute each specific fact to the source document by name — and, where relevant, the sheet, section, page, or clause. Casual conversational turns are answered without citations, and citation coverage on any turn can be incomplete.

A citation points to a specific piece of retrieved evidence: a passage from a document in a connected source (such as Egnyte, Google Drive, or a direct upload), an email, a calendar event, or a web result.

The Sources Panel

When an answer used retrieved evidence, a collapsed “N sources referenced” panel appears beneath it. Expanding the panel lists each source as its own row. Source markers written into the answer text are plain text, not buttons — the panel is where you inspect a source. Each row gives you:

• Source name — the document, email, calendar event, or web page the information came from
• Location line — a second line under the name showing where the passage came from: a folder path for Egnyte and uploaded files, a provider reference for Google Drive, or the section it was drawn from
• Details — a popover with where the passage was indexed from and what it was referenced for, plus the excerpt, the retrieval relevance score, and the originating search query when those are available
• Preview — opens the source file in Sevrel's built-in viewer for Egnyte and Google Drive sources, streamed through Sevrel using the organization's connection rather than your own connector login, and still subject to the access checks on that file; the viewer offers a download. A source Sevrel cannot stream opens at the provider instead, when it carries a provider link
• View in Documents — jumps to the file's location in the Documents view, for sources that carry a folder path

When source evidence is available, the panel helps you inspect it in the workspace. Citation coverage can be incomplete, so open the governing document and verify material claims before relying on the response.

Why Citations Matter in CRE

In commercial real estate, data accuracy isn't optional. Rent figures go into investor reports. Lease terms inform negotiation strategies. Financial data drives acquisition decisions. When AI provides an answer, CRE professionals need to know:

• Where did this come from? Which specific document contains this information?
• Is it current? Is the AI reading the latest amendment, or an outdated version?
• Can I verify it? Can I click through to the source and confirm the number?

Without citations, AI-generated answers require you to manually find the source document and verify every claim — which defeats the purpose of using AI in the first place. With citations, the verification step takes seconds.

Citations vs Hallucination

One of the biggest risks with general AI tools is hallucination — the AI generating confident-sounding but incorrect information. Sevrel's citation system provides a built-in check against this:

• If an answer cites sources, open the sources panel beneath it and preview the matching document to confirm the passage supports the claim
• If a claim lacks a citation, treat it with extra caution — it may be synthesized or inferred rather than directly stated in a document
• If the citation doesn't match the claim, the AI may have misinterpreted the source — try rephrasing the question to invoke deeper analysis

Best Practices for Verification

• •Always verify financial figures. Open the sources panel and preview the cited document for any rent, expense, or valuation number before using it in reports or decisions.
• •Check for amendments. If the citation points to an original lease but you know amendments exist, ask Sevrel specifically about the most recent amendment.
• •Phrase analytical questions carefully. Comparisons and multi-document analysis route to the standard tier with full retrieval; large-stakes legal, risk, and formal-drafting questions route to the deep tier. Routing is a heuristic bounded by your organization's configured maximum tier, and a higher tier is not a guarantee of a correct answer.
• •Report discrepancies. If you find a citation that doesn't match the claim, rephrasing usually resolves it — but it also helps us improve.