Citations and attribution

• Enterprise buyers demand traceability and compliance evidence.
• User trust is low or churn is tied to wrong answers.
• You’re training users to self-serve complex setups or policies.

Citations improve trust and reduce escalations, but they take UI space and can add latency. PMs decide how many to show, how to rank them, and when to hide them (e.g., private data). They also influence SEO if exposed publicly. Poor attribution can backfire if links are broken or irrelevant.

Limit to the top 2–3 sources, display titles not IDs, and track clickthrough. Validate links at render time to avoid 404s. In 2026, cache metadata and prefetch OG data for faster UI while keeping citations fresh via scheduled re-validation.

A setup wizard surfaces two citations per step. Link validity checks reduced broken links from 7% to <1%, and onboarding completion rose 9 points as users trusted the guidance.

• Linking to stale or internal-only docs users cannot access.
• Showing too many citations, creating cognitive overload.
• Not verifying links, leading to 404s that erode trust.