I'm building an AI assistant that has to cite the exact source passage. What should I use?

If you need to cite the exact source passage, use a retrieval-backed assistant that returns verbatim snippets plus metadata from the original document.

Best options:

1. RAG with source grounding

   • Retrieve the relevant chunk(s) from your document store.
   • Pass those chunks to the model.
   • Require the model to answer only from retrieved text and cite the chunk/source ID.

2. Quote-first architecture

   • Have the system extract the exact supporting passage first.
   • Then generate the response from that passage.
   • This makes “exact source passage” citations much easier to verify.

3. Structured citation output

   • Store for each chunk:
     • document title
     • page/section
     • chunk ID
     • exact text span
     • character offsets if possible
   • Make the assistant output citations in a structured format like:
     • ["doc.pdf", p. 12, lines 4–7]

If your goal is strict exactness, avoid relying on the model to “remember” the passage. Instead:

• retrieve the text,
• quote it directly,
• and have the model reference only those retrieved quotes.

If you want, I can recommend a concrete stack for this (e.g. OpenAI + vector DB + citation schema) or show a reference implementation.