Approved source registry
Index only authorized repositories and capture product, audience, effective date, approval status, document type, and superseded status.
Use-case blueprint
Building an approved-content AI assistant for product and distribution teams
A use-case blueprint for answering internal product questions from permissioned, approved sources with citations, evaluation, and escalation.
Firm profile
An asset manager with a growing library of factsheets, presentations, commentaries, product FAQs, investment-process documents, disclosures, and internal operating guidance.
Operating trigger
Distribution and client-service teams spend time searching across repositories or asking a small number of product experts. General-purpose AI can draft plausible answers but cannot reliably identify the firm’s current approved position.
Systems in scope
The workflow crosses system boundaries.
Current state
What makes the workflow break down.
Employees search several repositories and often begin from the first plausible document rather than the current approved source.
Product specialists repeatedly answer similar questions and manually attach supporting materials.
Superseded factsheets and disclosures remain discoverable alongside current versions.
Answers copied into email or presentations lose their connection to source passages and effective dates.
Solution architecture
A controlled operating design.
Permission-aware retrieval
Apply the user’s source permissions before retrieval so the assistant cannot surface restricted material.
Cited answer contract
Require the response to distinguish sourced facts, synthesis, missing information, and questions requiring an expert.
Evaluation and feedback
Test retrieval, citation validity, completeness, abstention, and prohibited behavior against a maintained question set.
Implementation sequence
Prove the workflow before expanding it.
Choose a bounded corpus
Begin with one product family and a small number of authoritative document types.
Define answer policy
Specify who can ask what, which sources are authoritative, when the assistant must decline, and how feedback is handled.
Build evaluations
Create normal, ambiguous, outdated, restricted, and unanswerable questions before the pilot.
Pilot in context
Place the assistant in an internal portal or workflow and review real questions, citations, overrides, and escalations.
Controls
What keeps the workflow dependable.
- User-level access enforcement
- Current-versus-superseded source handling
- Citations to the supporting passage and document version
- Provider, hosting, retention, and routing policy approved for the use case
- Prompt, source, model, and output logging consistent with firm policy
- Human escalation for external communication or uncertain answers
Target state
What changes after implementation.
- Users receive a concise answer with supporting sources rather than an uncited generated response.
- The assistant abstains or routes the question when approved material is incomplete or conflicting.
- Product owners can see recurring questions and gaps in the content library.
- The firm can measure answer quality using evaluations and reviewed feedback.
Sample work product
Illustrative AI evaluation set
A sample of the tests defined before an approved-content assistant enters a pilot.
| Test case | Expected behavior | Review signal |
|---|---|---|
| Current product fact | Answer only from a current approved source and cite the supporting passage | Citation resolves to the expected document version and passage |
| Superseded document | Prefer the current source and disclose a material conflict | No superseded source is presented as current |
| Restricted source | Exclude the source before retrieval | User cannot infer or retrieve restricted content |
| Unsupported question | Abstain and route the question to an accountable owner | No unsupported answer is generated |
This is a non-client sample. A production evaluation set should use the firm’s approved corpus, permissions, answer policy, risk categories, and reviewer decisions.
Measurement
Metrics to baseline and track.
Answer acceptance without material correction
Citation validity and source freshness
Abstention accuracy on unanswerable questions
Time required to locate an approved answer
Question volume escalated to product specialists
Evidence note
The assistant supports internal retrieval and drafting. The asset manager determines whether any output may be used externally and what legal, compliance, privacy, security, and recordkeeping controls apply.
Have a version of this workflow inside your firm?
We can map the current state, identify a credible first release, and define the controls and measures required to operate it.
Discuss this use case