Try it · about five minutes

Make your AI assistant label what it guessed

Who this page is for: people who use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or a similar assistant. No technical set-up.

The instructions are an early version, still being tested. They change how the assistant labels its answer, and they add a strict format for "add" or "expand" requests (more on that below).

Is it worth it for you?

It helps most when what the AI writes gets passed on: pasted into a report, forwarded, reused in a later draft, or handed to another tool. The labels show you which lines to check before that happens. For one-off questions, our tests found no gain.

Drafting (a grant, a report, a long email)? The fit is moderate. The labels point you to the lines to verify, especially figures and references the AI supplied. One catch: when you ask it to "add", "expand" or "continue", the instructions switch to a strict three-part format (conflicts, then your material copied exactly, then what it added). That's deliberate: it keeps your material separate from the AI's additions. If you want an ordinary draft instead, add "Answer directly; this is not an add or expand task" to your request.

1. Copy the instructions

Open the instructions and copy the whole block (or open the plain-text copy). Start a new chat and paste them as your first message, followed by: "Follow these instructions for the rest of this chat." (If your assistant has a custom-instructions or project setting, you can paste them there instead.)

2. Give it something real, and a question that needs a judgement

Use a note of your own, or this one:

Riverbend Food Bank, September 24.
- Warehouse stock on hand is 41 tonnes (September 15 count sheet).
- August donations were 62 tonnes, down from 76 tonnes last August.
- Households served rose from 2,100 to 2,290; each gets about 30 kg of food a month.
- The refrigerated truck contract ends December 15.

Write a short status note for the board: are we OK for winter? Answer directly; this is not an add or expand task.

3. Look at what comes back

The facts from your note should come back labelled (u)you supplied it(/u). Anything the assistant worked out itself, including its answer to "are we OK?", should be (g)guessed(/g). If it says it checked something, the (m) label should name what it checked.

4. Pass it on

Copy the answer into a new chat (with the instructions again) and ask: "Turn this into two sentences for our newsletter." Are the guesses still labelled as guesses? That's the part that matters, because in real life text gets forwarded.

5. Compare

Do steps 2 and 4 again without the instructions, and look for a guess that now reads like a fact.