A reliable AI research workflow separates discovery, evidence, synthesis, and verification. The goal is speed without losing the source trail.
1. Write the research brief
Define the decision, audience, deadline, and evidence standard before opening a tool. List what would change your conclusion.
2. Use AI for discovery
Search broadly for terminology, competing viewpoints, and likely primary sources. Treat generated answers as a map, not evidence.
3. Open and save original sources
Read the documents that materially affect the result. Save the relevant passage, publication date, author, and URL in one source table.
4. Build a claim-to-source outline
Ask AI to organize your notes into claims, supporting evidence, disagreements, and missing information. Remove any claim that cannot be traced back.
5. Draft and verify separately
Draft one section at a time, then run a separate verification pass. Check numbers, dates, quotations, and whether each citation supports the sentence beside it.
The takeaway
AI can compress search and synthesis, but the source trail is what makes the final work trustworthy.