Gen AI tools have been known to make up fake references, and this can disconcert people because they look so believable.
If you can't locate a reference and therefore access the full text, you will need to locate further references for yourself that you can access and read.
Why are the references fake?
Generative AI tools are not looking up and summarising information like a human being, but rather using huge amounts of data to basically predict the next word in a sentence. The answer the AI tool supplies may not actually be true.
Search for the reference in:
If you haven't found it in the above sources, copy and paste the reference into Google. If nothing comes up, that is a pretty good sign that the reference doesn't exist.
It can be hard to prove that a reference is not real, just because you can't find it. But the above will give you some clear indicators.
Check our Subject Guides for more about the sources for your subject.
Please do not upload copyrighted content to an AI tool.
You may find options to upload PDFs or articles so that you can summarise them, query them or make quizzes.
Always be careful when you upload anything to an AI tool, remember that you are often submitting that material for further training of the tool.
If you upload copyright materials, you are probably affecting someone else's intellectual property and copyright. Some publishers now have specific clauses in their terms of use about not using their materials with AI tools.
Rather than uploading a PDF or copying and pasting it directly into the AI tool, it is recommended that you point to the article title, DOI, or link for the AI tool to then find the content itself and summarise it from there. Note that this will often mean it is only using the title and abstract/summary (not the full text).
Open Access - Some books and articles are specifically made Open Access. If these articles are already freely available on the open internet (with an Open Access licence), then you are more free to use them with other tools.
Some researchers are trialling using AI to screen search results, including using Rayaan.
See examples of guidance below:
Cochrane and RAISE
Cochrane are co-leading RAISE (Responsible AI in Evidence Synthesis), an international initiative to standardize recommendations for responsible AI use in evidence synthesis. In June 2025, RAISE released an updated three-paper collection: Responsible AI in Evidence Synthesis (RAISE): guidance and recommendations.
"Our authors can use AI if it upholds the principles of research integrity. AI and automation must be disclosed, have human oversight, and authors are accountable for the final content. Authors must also justify why they’re using AI and demonstrate that it will not compromise methodological rigor or integrity."
For more information and a webinar, see: How is Cochrane advancing responsible AI for evidence synthesis?
NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence)
NICE has a position statement, including:
"There remains a need to build trust in the application and use of AI in decision making (Zemplényi et al. 2023). Therefore, any use of AI methods should be based on the principle of augmentation, not replacement, of human involvement (that is, having a capable and informed human in the loop; Fleurence et al. 2024). For example, submitting organisations should conduct careful technical and external validation when AI methods are used, and present the results."