Use ChatGPT web search and follow the cited source

Example result.

Answer: An Excel CSV saves only the text and values displayed on the active worksheet. It isn't the whole multi-sheet workbook, and formulas don't stay live.
Source: Microsoft Support, "Excel formatting and features that are not transferred to other file formats", section CSV (Comma delimited).
Supported: active worksheet only; text and values as displayed; formatting and other contents lost.
Recommendation (not from the source): keep the .xlsx if the recipient needs both sheets and the formulas.

1. Narrow the question

Name the product, version or surface when it matters, and ask one thing. “What happens when Excel saves a workbook as CSV?” is easier to check than “tell me everything about business data”. For how a product behaves, the source you want is its official documentation; a forum post describes one person’s experience.

Why this works: a narrow question has an answer you can find on one page.

What you should see: one question, with the product named.

2. Ask for a source-linked answer

You don’t need a special button. In ChatGPT on the web, ask for current information or sources and it searches; citations appear in the chat when it has. Workspace settings can limit search, so if you never see citations, ask your admin.

Search current official documentation to answer this public question: [question, product and version]. Give a short answer with links to the primary pages. Split it into separate claims and name the heading or passage that supports each. Keep documented behaviour apart from your recommendations. Say if a detail can't be verified. Don't use any private work material.

[question, product and version] is your question from step 1.

Why this works: asking for the passage per claim makes the check practical, and separating recommendation from documentation stops advice passing as a product rule.

What you should see: a short answer, split into claims, each with a link and a named section.

3. Open the citation and check each claim

Open the page itself, not the snippet. Check the publisher, title, product and any update date. Find the named section and read the qualifications around it.

Then break any compound sentence into its parts and ask of each: does the passage say this? Is it an available feature, a future rollout, a restriction or a recommendation? A page about one app doesn’t establish the same behaviour in another. If the page shows no update date, note that and the date you read it rather than inventing one.

Why this works: citations attach to sentences, but sentences often carry more than one claim.

What you should see: each claim marked supported, not supported, or recommendation.

Check the result

• Every important claim has a passage on the cited page that says it.
• Recommendations are labelled as recommendations.
• The source is the official one for the product, not a forum or reseller.
• Anything unverified is marked as such.

The usual failure: a partly supported sentence. The citation backs the first clause, and the second rides along beside it. Spot it by splitting the sentence and finding each part in the passage. Then:

The cited passage supports [supported claim] but does not establish [unsupported claim]. Revise the answer to keep the supported point and remove or qualify the unsupported one. Search for another current primary source only if that detail is necessary. Keep recommendations separate and link the passages you rely on.

Paste the part the page supports and the part it doesn’t. Open any new source and repeat the check; if a detail stays unresolved, leave it unresolved.

Fictional example. A colleague is handing a two-sheet Excel workbook with formulas to another team and asks whether CSV will do. ChatGPT’s first answer:

CSV saves the active worksheet’s values, and it keeps all tabs and formulas ready for editing. [Microsoft Support]

Microsoft’s page, under CSV (Comma delimited), says CSV “saves only the text and values as they are displayed in cells of the active worksheet”, that displayed formulas are converted as text, and that formatting and other worksheet contents are lost.

• The failure. The citation supports “active worksheet’s values”. It says nothing to support “keeps all tabs”, and it contradicts “formulas ready for editing”.
• The repair. The correction prompt kept the supported clause and dropped the other two, giving the example result. Keeping the .xlsx is labelled as a recommendation, because the page documents CSV, not what this recipient needs.
• What it doesn’t prove. The page documents how CSV works; it isn’t evidence that this particular export was done correctly. Open the exported file to check that.

Task kit for this job: Download (ZIP) · Reusable instructions

Go deeper

Keep a small claim register

For an answer that matters, record each claim with its source, exact location, qualification and anything unresolved. That’s more useful than a long list of links with no mapping between evidence and sentence. Recheck details that change (access, limits, pricing, rollouts) close to the decision.

When the source and a forum disagree

Suppose the official page has no update date and a recent forum thread says the behaviour has changed. Keep the official claim, mark the forum claim as unverified, and say so in the answer rather than picking the more confident one. If the decision depends on it, test it yourself on a copy.

Know when the job becomes research

One feature question may need one good page. Comparing several options needs a research brief, several source types and explicit trade-offs. Choose where an AI answer should come from helps you pick, and Check a research report before relying on it covers the fuller review.

Sources

• OpenAI: Web search
• Microsoft Support: Excel formatting and features that are not transferred to other file formats