Ask the Source

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Ask the Source Introduction

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Meet Ask the Source

Ask the Source helps publishers capture reader intent, answer questions with trusted journalism, and turn moments of curiosity into audience value, across the CMS and digital experiences they already use.

Readers can ask natural-language questions and receive answers grounded in a publisher’s reporting. Every answer includes source citations and links back to relevant coverage, helping audiences explore topics more deeply while staying within publisher-owned experiences.

Because Ask the Source is platform-agnostic, publishers do not need to be on the Arc XP CMS to use it. It can be deployed across publisher sites and apps as a branded answer experience that integrates with existing content, workflows, and audience strategies.

Ask the Source is built around three core capabilities:

Capture reader intent

Turn articles, homepages, section fronts, and apps into intent-capture surfaces.

Suggested questions, follow-ups, and conversational exploration help publishers understand what audiences are trying to learn and where curiosity is leading them.

Answer with trusted journalism

Deliver cited answers grounded in publisher reporting.

Instead of sending readers to a list of links, Ask the Source helps them quickly understand a topic while connecting them back to the journalism behind every response.

Turn intent into publisher value

Every reader question is a first-party intent signal.

Publishers can use those signals to drive deeper engagement, activate archives, support subscription strategies, strengthen monetization opportunities, and inform editorial decision-making.

Key Capabilities

  • Natural Language Questions: Readers ask questions in plain language, just like they would ask a colleague
  • AI-Generated Answers: The system provides concise, factual answers based on your articles
  • Source Attribution: Every answer links back to the original articles, maintaining journalistic transparency
  • Multi-Site Support: Manage multiple news properties from a single interface
  • Content Safeguards: Built-in moderation prevents inappropriate queries and protects sensitive information

How Ask the Source Works

Understanding the basics of how Ask the Source operates can help you configure it effectively. This section provides a high-level overview without technical details.

Article Processing

When articles are published to your Arc XP ecosystem, Ask the Source automatically processes them:

  1. Content Extraction: The system reads the headline, description, and body text from each article
  2. Breaking into Segments: Long articles are divided into smaller segments. This allows the AI to find specific relevant passages rather than entire articles
  3. Creating Search Indexes: Each segment is indexed in a way that allows the AI to understand its meaning, not just match keywords

This processing happens automatically — you don’t need to take any action for new articles to become searchable.

Finding Relevant Content

When a reader asks a question, Ask the Source searches your articles in two ways:

  1. Meaning-Based Search: Finds articles that are conceptually related to the question, even if they don’t contain the exact words used
  2. Keyword Search: Finds articles containing specific terms from the question

The system combines results from both approaches and ranks them by relevance. Recent articles receive a slight boost in ranking to ensure timely content surfaces first.

Generating Answers

Once relevant articles are found, the AI reads through them and composes an answer:

  • Answers are written in a neutral, objective tone appropriate for journalism
  • The AI uses only information from your published articles — it doesn’t add outside knowledge
  • Answers typically run 4-6 sentences
  • The AI always attributes information to your content by including source links

Built-in Safeguards

Several layers of protection ensure quality and safety:

  1. Content Policy: Queries are checked against content policies before processing
  2. Your Blocking Rules: Custom rules you create can prevent specific types of questions
  3. Response Guardrails: The AI is instructed to decline requests outside its purpose (generating code, creative writing, revealing its instructions, etc.)
  4. Source Requirement: The AI will not invent information — if it can’t find relevant content in your articles, it tells the reader it couldn’t find an answer

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