Anthropic just released a Citations API that lets Claude cite specific sentences from your source documents. This addresses a major issue with AI – knowing where the information actually came from.
I’ve tested several citation systems, and most of them are pretty bad at accurately pointing to sources. They either make up fake citations or cite things that don’t really support what they’re saying. The Citations API looks different because it’s designed to ground responses in the actual source text.
Here’s what the Citations API does: When you feed Claude some documents, it can now tell you exactly which sentences it used to generate each part of its response. This is huge for anyone building AI systems that need to be trustworthy – like financial analysis tools or customer support bots that reference product documentation.
The most important thing about this release is that it’s available today through both Anthropic’s API and Google Cloud Vertex AI. That means you can start using it right now to build systems that actually show their work.
If you’re interested in learning more about building reliable AI systems, check out my post on essential AI tools (https://adam.holter.com/my-9-essential-paid-ai-tools-what-i-pay-for-and-why/). Citations API could become another key tool for creating AI applications that users can actually trust.
The bottom line is this: If you’re building anything with AI where accuracy and trustworthiness matter, you should be looking at this Citations API. It’s a practical solution to a real problem, not just another flashy feature.
I’ll be testing this extensively over the next few weeks and will share more detailed insights on how it performs in real-world applications. For now, the key takeaway is that this is available and worth exploring if you need verifiable AI outputs.
