platform-guideline checked
Data, privacy, and security for web search in Microsoft 365 Copilot
Documents Copilot referencing web content to ground responses and the policy controls that affect whether web references are available.
Pattern Decisions This Source Supports
| Pattern | Supported decision | Required contract | Claim note |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI answer without sources | Flag this anti-pattern when an AI answer makes evidence-dependent claims and provides no source link, citation marker, grounding panel, source scope, or verification action. | Evidence-dependent answers must expose whether sources were searched, retrieved, used, unavailable, permission-limited, failed, or not required. | Supports web references and policy-controlled source availability. |
| Citation display | Choose citation display when the main user need is verifying a generated or summarized claim against the source that supports it. | Each citation marker opens or focuses the source record that supports the adjacent claim. | Supports web references and policy-controlled source availability. |
| Source grounding display | Choose source grounding display when users need answer-wide evidence coverage, source scope, retrieved-versus-used source status, or unsupported-claim visibility. | The grounding display names the source scope that was available for this answer, not just sources the user might expect. | Supports web-grounded response behavior and policy-controlled web access. |
Evidence Role
This source is treated as platform-guideline evidence. Use it to validate the decision rules above, not as a visual style reference.
Publisher: Microsoft. Last checked: .