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Every claim in a Consensus answer is tied to a real paper. Citation Grounding goes one step further: it shows you the exact passage in that paper that supports the claim.
A citation card over a Consensus answer, with the Full Text used badge and the supporting quote from the paper's results section highlighted

Hover a citation to open its card. Full Text used means the quote came from the full paper, not just the abstract.

It’s a verification layer. Rather than asking you to trust AI search on faith, Consensus lets you check the evidence behind each sentence in seconds.

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How it works

  • Hover a citation to see the quote from the paper that supports the statement.
  • Open the Evidence tab on a paper (click its Supporting Quotes in References) to see every quote Consensus pulled from it for your search.
  • Open the Attachment tab to read the PDF, and pick a quote from the menu at the bottom to highlight it in its original context.
Grounding works best on papers where Consensus has full text. Through publisher partnerships (Wiley, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, ACS, APA, AAAS, Oxford University Press, and others), open-access PDFs, and your own uploads, Consensus can look beyond the abstract to find the supporting passage. See Full text access.
The paper panel on its Evidence tab, listing five numbered quotes from the paper's results section

The Evidence tab lists every quote the answer used from this paper.

The paper panel open on its Overview tab, with a supporting quote from the abstract highlighted and the Highlighted quote #2 picker below it

Pick a quote and Consensus highlights it where it appears: in the abstract, as here, or in the PDF.

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Reading the signals

The Citations panel in a thread lists every paper cited across the conversation.

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Where it appears

Citation Grounding applies to AI-generated answers in the Consensus web app: Pro messages and Deep Reviews. The MCP server and API return paper metadata and key takeaways rather than per-claim quotes.

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Why it matters

Consensus is built on a simple rule: if the system can’t ground an answer in real evidence, it won’t make one up. Citation Grounding makes that rule visible. You can audit any sentence, catch a paper cited for something it never claimed, and move from an answer to the primary source without leaving the page.
Combine Citation Grounding with a citation verification workflow to audit an entire bibliography.

Read the full paper

How Consensus reads paywalled papers.

Research Agent

The agent that produces grounded answers.