How accurate AI answers are, and how to check them
AI answers can be wrong or miss nuance, so every result links to the pages it came from and chat quotes are checked word for word against the page. Check numbers, dates and obligations against the cited page before you rely on them.
Updated 1 min read
PDFBetter's AI is a reading aid. It's built to point you at the evidence rather than ask you to trust it: answers quote the page, summaries link each point to its pages, and anything that couldn't be tied to the document is flagged or withheld.
How results are checked
- Chat answers keep only quotes that match the page word for word. Unmatched quotes are removed and counted, and an answer with no verified quote says so. See Ask questions about a PDF.
- Summary points that couldn't be tied to a specific page are flagged so you can check them.
- Extraction values are marked Found, Unverified, Missing or Invalid, so you know which ones to look at.
- Workspace answers and briefs name the document, version and page for every citation; statements without a verified source are flagged.
Where it can go wrong
- AI answers, summaries and translations can be wrong or miss nuance. They are reading aids, not legal, medical or financial advice.
- Scanned pages have no text layer, so the AI can't read them until you run OCR (except short files, which Ask can read from page images).
- Long documents are read up to your plan's page cap; skipped pages are always listed.
- Machine translation is weakest on legal and medical terms. Have important documents checked by a qualified translator.
- Documents created with AI are drafts. Review every section before you use, send or sign one.
What the AI provider sees, what PDFBetter stores and how to switch to Private AI are covered in What happens to your documents when you use AI. PDFBetter doesn't use your documents to train models.
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- Ask questions about a PDF and check the cited pagesOpen the document, go to the Ask tab of the AI assistant, type a question and click Ask. Answers come only from that file and list Sources: click a p. 4 chip to jump to the quoted page. Each message costs 1 credit.
- Summarize a PDF, search it by meaning, or map itIn the AI assistant, the Summary tab writes key points that link to their pages (2 credits), and Search finds passages by meaning (1 credit). For a visual overview, PDF to mind map builds a map whose nodes quote their pages.
- What happens to your documents when you use AIAI features send your document's text to OpenAI's API with storage turned off; scan restoration sends page images to fal.ai. Your documents aren't used to train models. In Settings → Data & privacy you can choose Private AI or delete stored AI data.
- Open the AI assistant and what each tab doesIn the editor, click the yellow ✨ AI assistant button in the top bar (or More (⋯) → AI assistant). From the dashboard, use the ✨ AI assistant menu and pick a document. The panel has nine tabs, from Ask to Scan.