How to use web sources in Bruukki's AI assistant

Until now, Bruukki’s AI assistant has answered from what it knows and what is in your material. Now it can read a web page you give it a link to, and search the web for current information. In both cases the answer tells you which source each piece of information comes from.

This guide covers how to give a link as a source, how to ask the assistant to search, and what happens to the sources afterwards. It also covers what the assistant does not do, so you know what to check yourself.

Two ways to get sources into an answer

The first is to give a link. Paste a web address into your message and say what you want done with the page. The assistant reads the page and uses it as the basis of its suggestion. This suits a situation where you already have a good source: a news article, a statistics office page, an education authority’s guideline or a publisher’s open supplementary material.

The second is to ask for current information. When you ask about something the assistant cannot know for certain, such as this year’s figures or recent events, it searches the web. You can also ask for sources directly: end your request with “and cite your sources”.

There is no separate search switch. The assistant decides whether a search is needed the same way it decides to add a new section to the material. It does not search for settled facts, but it does for recent ones.

How to give a link as a source

1. Open a material. If the AI assistant is not visible, choose Open AI assistant.
2. Paste the web address into your message and write what you want. For example: “Make five reading comprehension questions for year 8 from this article: https://…”
3. The assistant reads the page and makes a suggestion. The text carries a reference number such as [1], and under the answer it says 1 web source. Behind it is a link to the page you gave.
4. Check the suggestion and accept it into the material like any other suggestion.

The assistant only reads a page you give it, or a page it found through a search. It does not guess addresses and does not open pages that neither of you chose.

How to ask the assistant to search

Write your request as usual and add that you want sources included. For example: “Write a short informational text on Finland’s current climate targets for first-year upper secondary students and cite your sources.”

The assistant finds a few sources, writes the text and marks which claim comes from which source: [1], [2] and so on. Under the answer is a list headed web sources. Each row is a link that opens in a new tab.

Numbering continues through the whole conversation. When the assistant searches again later, new sources get the next numbers, so source [2] means the same page for the whole conversation. You can also ask the assistant to go back to a source: “Take the exact figure from source [2].”

What the assistant does with a source, and what it does not

The assistant uses the page as the basis of its text, quotes briefly and names the source. It does not copy the page into the material as is. This also keeps you on the right side of copyright: a short quotation with attribution is allowed, copying a whole article is not.

Sources appear in the chat, not in the material. When you accept a suggestion, the text goes into the material but the source list does not. If you want the sources visible to students or kept for your own records, copy the links from the chat into the material. Sources are not yet saved with the material, so for now this step is yours.

The text of a web page is information to the assistant, not instructions. If a page contains text that tries to steer the AI, the assistant ignores it and uses only the page’s factual content.

Check the sources before you use them

The assistant does not judge a source’s reliability for you. It searches the public web, and the web contains everything. Open the links and check that the claim really is on the page, and that the page is one you would give your students anyway. The reference numbers exist for exactly this: every claim can be traced.

Check the timing separately. The web is full of preview texts that describe something that has already happened as upcoming. The assistant is instructed to reconcile sources against today’s date, but if the topic is recent, check the dates yourself.

If the search fails or finds no sources, the assistant says so plainly: I couldn’t check web sources for this answer. The answer is then based on the assistant’s own knowledge, and it deserves a more careful check than usual.

What leaves for the web, and what does not

When the assistant searches, the search service receives the search query. When it reads a link you gave, the search service receives the page address. Nothing else travels with it: not your name, not your workspace details, not your conversation. The search service is Linkup, a French company.

The assistant writes the search query itself. It is instructed to keep the query short and to leave the material text, the conversation and students’ work out of it. Use common sense all the same: do not ask for a search where a student’s name or other personal data would be part of the request. “Check the claims in this essay” works better if you paste only the claim you want checked, without the writer’s name.

When to use a link, a search, or your own materials

Try it with your own material

Try Bruukki for free and paste a link into your next request. Web sources are a new feature, so do tell us if something does not work.

Read also: How to make AI tasks that fit your own class and How to share a Bruukki material with students via a link.