How Articles Are Made

GovFacts articles are produced by a system we call the GovFacts Engine: a multi-stage software program that turns a government topic into a clear, sourced, and maintained explainer.

The GovFacts Engine researches and drafts explainers, then refines and verifies every draft against its sources before publication.

Key Steps

More than 120,000 lines of code guide articles through a development process designed to deliver consistent quality and value to our readers.

  1. Topic selection. We work systematically through the questions people actually have about federal agencies, programs, and policy debates. Candidate topics come from public signals, such as high-traffic federal pages, public analytics like analytics.usa.gov, and current events. We also welcome reader suggestions. To limit any editorial bias, these ideas are reviewed, filtered, and transformed through an AI check before research begins.
  2. Research. The pipeline’s first major stage runs on Perplexity’s Deep Research, which searches the web and assembles a sourced, long-form research base for the topic. Perplexity is prompted for a nonpartisan, thorough treatment grounded in primary and authoritative sources including government documents, official data, established reporting, and academic work. Typically, this step builds a research brief with between 50 and 100 sources.
  3. Drafting. Anthropic’s Claude turns that research into a plain-language explainer. We aim for shorter, clearer, and structured for the web, without dumbing down the nuance that government actually has. Draft articles at this step typically range from 2500-4500 words.
  4. Fact-checking and verification. Before anything publishes, a layered verification stage checks the draft: it extracts the article’s factual claims, re-gathers evidence for them (again through Perplexity), and reviews each claim against that evidence with Anthropic’s Claude, assembling the source set that appears on the page.
  5. Publication. The finished article is published under the GovFacts name, with its sources shown on the page so you can verify any claim yourself, and a credit line noting it was produced by GovFacts.
  6. Keeping pages current. Government doesn’t hold still. We schedule updates, which you can track at the top of articles. When we revisit a topic or a reader requests an update, we update the page and record a new review date. The “last reviewed” date you see on an article reflects when its facts were last checked.

Different steps rely on different AI providers, each matched to the job: Perplexity for live web research, Anthropic’s Claude for writing and verification, and OpenAI models for a range of supporting tasks (topic discovery, de-duplication, classification). We use the most capable models at the steps where accuracy matters most, and we update these choices as the technology improves.

Delivering on Our Priorities

Getting the facts right is the first job, but it isn’t the only one. An article can be accurate and still be confusing, one-sided, or carelessly built. So beyond fact-checking, every GovFacts article goes through a battery of checks. Some judge the quality of the writing, and others make sure our own automated editing didn’t break anything along the way.

As an article is prepared, here are some of the dimensions that matter to us:

  • Fairness. Are competing positions shown and presented in their best light?
  • Plain language. Is it written in words an ordinary person would actually use, not bureaucratic or academic jargon?
  • Substance. Does each section say something concrete (real numbers, names, rules, examples, etc.) or does it stay vague?
  • Logic. Does each conclusion actually follow from what came before it?

Checks are ranked by how much they matter. Getting a fact right counts for more than polishing a sentence, so problems are prioritized in order: facts first, then logic, then fairness, then readability, then style. A low-priority change, like smoothing some wording, is never allowed to alter a fact or break the logic of an argument.

Responsible AI and Our Limits

GovFacts was recognized as a Webby Honoree for Responsible AI (2026). This is recognition we take as a standard to keep meeting, not a finish line.

We show our sources, require verification before publishing, keep pages under active review, and correct when we become aware of issues. Still, for any decision that affects you directly, please always confirm the specifics with the official, primary source (at the relevant government website).

We’re built to be an excellent starting point. We are, of course, not a substitute for official government sources or professional advice.