Checking AI output before it ships

Catches fabricated facts, missing steps and confident errors against the source before anything goes out.

You check AI-drafted reports, correspondence, research and figures against supplied sources before colleagues or clients receive them. An assistant helps compare claims and expose omissions, but can invent facts, repeat unsupported assumptions and sound certain.

The exam for Checking AI output before it ships is not open yet. A skill opens once its questions are approved and tested.

What it measures

Whatever the skill, the exam rates your work in the same six areas of the Standard. Three are for the value you get from the assistant, and three for the control you keep. Each area gets one of 4 ratings (Emerging, Developing, Proficient, Accomplished). For Checking AI output before it ships, a strong performance looks like this. What each area includes and excludes.

Value

What you get from the assistant: how far it takes the work, how well you brief it, and the piece you hand in.

Reaching further

You ask the assistant to surface overlooked claims, missing steps and alternatives before the checked piece reaches its reader.

Using the assistant to produce work beyond what you could have produced alone, rather than the same work faster.

Briefing the assistant

You give the assistant the source, claim set and checking criteria, then specify how flagged errors should appear.

Giving the assistant the reader, purpose and source facts the work depends on, and the form, length and contents you need back.

The finished piece

You turn checked output into a usable document by correcting errors, restoring steps and explaining changes for its reader.

Turning the assistant's output into something a colleague could use: editing it, combining it and adding original thinking.

Control

What you keep in hand: checking its work, keeping information safe, and deciding what stays with a person.

Checking its work

You trace every material claim, figure and assumption to the source, correct planted errors, and record what changed.

Checking the assistant's claims, figures and assumptions against the source before the work is used.

Safety and confidentiality

You remove personal and restricted details from source material, prompts and checked output before sharing the result.

Handling confidential and personal data, seeing compliance, ethical and reputational risk, and declining unsafe requests.

Knowing what to delegate

You keep high-stakes judgements and unresolved discrepancies for a named approver, while delegating bounded checks to the assistant.

Deciding what to hand to the assistant and what to keep, and at what stakes, before any output exists.

What you do in the exam

Every skill of the Standard is examined the same way, at the same pass mark, in the Applied AI Badge. Two tasks with the assistant and two sets of questions, over 15 minutes. You do real work with an AI assistant beside you, hand in what you would send, then answer follow-up questions about your own work.

01
A source-checked report draft from supplied evidence, with claims, figures and assumptions flagged.
02
A corrected formal letter from a supplied draft, with unsupported statements and missing details identified.
03
A verified research summary from source documents, with omissions and fabricated citations removed.

These are the kinds of task the exam sets. Your exam draws its own from a bank the Examination Board has approved.

Exam: Applied AI Badge
Price: US$19
Length: 15 minutes
Attempts: One for each purchase, then a 7-day wait

What the badge certifies

What an employer reads

Passed an Institute exam in checking AI output before it ships. They briefed the assistant with source evidence, caught fabricated claims and missing steps, and delivered a corrected, source-checked document.

You earn it in one exam, never by finishing a course.

Name on the certificate: Applied AI Badge: Checking AI output before it ships
Who it is for: Editors, analysts, researchers and policy professionals who verify AI-assisted work before release.
Valid for: 2 years, then renew
Verification: Every badge has a public verification page an employer can open, and a place in the public register if you choose it.
Marked by: An AI examiner marks your work against a marking guide and quotes your own words as evidence. A person checks anything borderline.

Near it in the Standard

This skill applies to any job, so it sits in the Standard's core rather than in one function.

Reading the AI landscape
Knows what today's AI can and cannot do, and tells a real capability from a demo.
Choosing where AI belongs
Decides which tasks to hand to AI, which to keep human, and why.
Finding AI leverage in your work
Breaks a working week into tasks and spots where AI saves time without adding risk.
Briefing an AI assistant
Gives an assistant the context, constraints and format that get usable output first time, and iterates when it does not.
Using AI safely and responsibly
Keeps confidential and personal data out of the tool, declines unsafe requests and stays accountable for the result.
Managing AI risk in your field
Recognises the compliance, ethical and reputational risks of AI in a specific profession and acts on them.

Practise it before you pay for it

Practice is free (up to 50 sessions a day) and shaped like the exam, with a coach that tells you what to change. It never counts towards a credential, and an exercise you practised is kept out of your exam.

How practice works Take the free AI skills exam

Want to learn it first? AI+ At Work: Foundations covers this skill. No book is required to pass.