Understanding AI Assistant Responses: Sources, Confidence, and When the AI Says "I Don't Know"

The Mobile Locker AI Assistant doesn't just give you an answer — it shows you exactly where that answer came from, how confident it is, and when it can't find enough information to respond. Understanding these three elements helps you get the most out of the AI Assistant and know when to dig deeper.

Source Citations

Every answer the AI Assistant provides includes a list of source documents it used to construct the response. These citations tell you:

Which presentation did the information come from (by name and document type)
How relevant was that document to your question
Which page the relevant content appeared on (for PDF documents processed with advanced document extraction)

Relevance Levels

Each cited source is tagged with one of three relevance levels:

Direct — The document directly answers your question and was the primary source of the response. This is the first place you should look if you want to verify the answer.
Supporting — The document provides useful background or context that contributed to the answer, but is not the primary source.
Tangential — The document mentions the topic, but it played a minor role in the response. Useful for discovering related materials you may not have considered.

When you receive an answer with multiple sources, starting with the Direct sources gives you the most targeted verification path.

Confidence Levels

Along with its answer, the AI Assistant rates its own confidence as High, Medium, or Low. This rating reflects how well the available documents matched your question — not just whether an answer was found.

High — Multiple documents contain detailed, directly relevant information that closely matches your question. The answer is well-supported. Review the cited sources if you need the full context.
Medium — One detailed source was found, or several documents contain brief mentions of the topic. The answer is reasonable but may not be complete. Check the cited sources for the full picture.
Low — Only minimal or loosely related information was found in the available presentations. Treat the answer as a starting point only. Verify directly against the source documents before acting on it.

A Low confidence answer is not necessarily wrong — but it signals that the uploaded content may not fully cover the topic, or that your question may benefit from being rephrased.

When the AI Says "I Don't Know"

If the AI Assistant cannot find sufficient information in your enabled presentations to answer your question, it will tell you directly rather than guessing. You may see a response such as:

"I couldn't find information about that in your presentations."

This is intentional. The AI is designed to answer only from the content available to you in Mobile Locker — it does not use general knowledge or external sources. When it says "I don't know," it means the answer isn't in the documents you have access to.

Why this matters: A confident-sounding wrong answer is more dangerous than an honest "I don't know." The AI is built to prefer transparency over fabrication.

What to do when you get "I Don't Know."

Rephrase your question. Try using different terminology or breaking a complex question into smaller parts.
Check which presentations are AI-enabled. Only presentations with the green sparkle badge are searchable. The document you need may exist in Mobile Locker but not be enabled for AI, or you may not have access to it. Please reach out to your company administrators if you don't have access to the files you need.
Flag the content gap. If the AI consistently can't answer questions on a particular topic, it may indicate that new or updated content should be added to your presentation library. Administrators can review AI usage reports to identify frequently unanswered questions and prioritize content development.

Putting It All Together

When you receive an AI response, a quick three-point check helps you assess how much weight to give it:

Answer Found? If the AI said "I don't know," the content may not yet be in your library.
Confidence Level? High confidence means the answer is well-supported. Low confidence means verify before acting.
Sources? Review the Direct sources to confirm the answer matches what's in the original document.

The AI Assistant is a powerful tool for quickly surfacing information — but it works best when paired with your own judgment and the source documents it cites.

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