Glossary Updates6 new terms added to the glossaries · October 11, 2026, 13:38 CEST
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Glossary · 5 · Content lifecycle and AI

Answer provenance

Also known as: Answer attribution, Answer traceability

In AI functions that answer from documentation, answer provenance is the recorded trace from a generated answer back to the source units it was built from, their versions, and the model, configuration and time that produced the answer.

  • Content lifecycle
  • AI
  • Technical documentation

In one sentence

Answer provenance traces an AI-generated answer back to its source units, their versions, the model version and the time it was produced.

Example

A service assistant answers a question on a torque value and cites the maintenance topic, its version 4.2 and its release date; the log stores the model version and the retrieved passages.

How it applies

  • Source citations: In retrieval-augmented generation, the passages an answer was grounded in are known at generation time. Showing them as citations lets readers check the answer against the released source.
  • Versions: A citation is only useful if it names the version of the source. When the source changes or is withdrawn, earlier answers can be traced to the content that was valid at the time.
  • Logging: Records of the question, the retrieved units, the model and its configuration, and the time of the answer form an audit trail. What may be stored, especially about the people asking, is decided by data protection rules.
  • Limits: Provenance shows where an answer came from, not that it is correct. A model can cite a source and still misstate it, so answers on safety-related or legally required information point to the released source rather than replace it.

Answer provenance vs. content provenance

Content provenance covers the origin and change history of any piece of content. Answer provenance is the case of a single generated answer, whose origin is a combination of retrieved sources, a model and a moment in time; it is therefore recorded per answer rather than per document.

External references

By knowledge.aitechdoc.world · Published October 11, 2026 · Last reviewed

Source: W3C PROV-DM: The PROV Data Model (W3C Recommendation, 2013)

Definitions follow the cited standards and specifications. Where a source is a copyrighted publication, such as an ISO, IEC or EN standard, the definition is a close paraphrase, not a verbatim quotation, so as not to infringe copyright. We recommend reading the original publication. The sections “How it applies” are editorial commentary by AI TechDoc Knowledge and are not part of any standard.

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