Capability guide · Plain language first
Research and understand
Find, compare and explain information while keeping the sources, the gaps and the uncertainty in plain view.
The pattern
See what changes, and where you return.
A question fans out to several sources, then a person checks the explanation that comes back.
Recognisable examples
Begin with work you already understand.
A capability is a broad kind of help. The linked task guides explain how to complete a specific piece of work.
Get up to speed on a topic before a meeting
Compare what three sources actually claim
Ask questions across a long PDF instead of reading all of it
Pull together a short briefing with links you can check
AI can contribute
Repeatable effort and a first pass
- Looks up current information and shows the links it used
- Answers questions about documents you supply and points to the passage
- Can run a longer piece of research and report back in writing
- Explains an unfamiliar topic at the level you ask for
The person contributes
Meaning, checking and responsibility
- Decides the real question the research needs to answer
- Opens the important sources and reads them properly
- Notices the missing viewpoint or the claim nothing actually supports
Featured Human Partnership
Research a topic with reliable sources
Research becomes useful when it changes the quality of a decision. A long report is not evidence of good research unless the scope, sources, disagreements and remaining uncertainty are visible.
- AI capability
- Editable research planning. Deep research features can turn a broad question into a proposed plan, source strategy and sequence of subquestions that the person can review before a long search begins.
- Human expertise
- Decision framing. You know what action the research must support, which uncertainty is blocking progress, and what level of confidence is sufficient for the consequence involved.
- Decision
- The person decides whether the evidence is credible, relevant and sufficient for the real decision. AI can assemble and challenge a case, but it cannot set the organisation's evidence threshold or accept the consequence of being wrong.
- Skill built
- Evidence judgement. Used well, the workflow strengthens question framing, source evaluation, uncertainty handling and the discipline of matching the strength of a conclusion to the strength of its evidence.
- Finished result
- A focused briefing that keeps its links, its disagreements, its gaps and your next questions all in view.
- 01Turn the topic into a decision
State what must be decided, what is already known, the time and geographic boundaries, and which source types should carry the most weight.
- 02Propose the research route
Generate a research plan, candidate questions and source strategy for review before using deep research, web search, uploaded files or connected sources.
- 03Interrogate the emerging evidence
Refine the search when terms are ambiguous, important viewpoints are absent, or early evidence suggests the original framing was too narrow.
- 04Decide what the evidence earns
The person decides which conclusions are supported, which remain provisional, and whether more evidence, a subject matter expert or a real world test is required.
- 05Open the claims that carry the decision
Read the most important sources directly, check publication dates and jurisdiction, trace quotations and numbers, and record what the search could not find.
Reviewed content
Sources and review
- Reviewed
- Review by
- Owner
- The Human Bit editorial
One quick check