RESEARCH, WRITING, AND KNOWLEDGE AGENTS

CHAPTER SUMMARY Deep-research agents plan sub-questions, gather and evaluate sources, cross-check them, synthesize a report, and review the draft. Common weaknesses include poor sources, premature stopping, hidden contradictions, prompt injection, and overconfidence. Document generation is often a separate step that turns structured findings into a polished report using a fixed structure and style. Source grounding ties every factual claim to a source the agent actually read, enforced by registries, link checks, and claim verification. Unsupported claims must be sourced, softened, or removed, and a real citation still does not guarantee a true claim. KEY TERMS REVIEW Deep-research agent: an agent that investigates a broad question over many steps. Synthesize: to combine separate pieces of information into a unified whole. Primary source: an original document or data rather than a summary of it. Executive summary: a short overview of the main points at the start of a report. Citation: a pointer from a claim to its supporting source. Source grounding: tying every factual statement to evidence actually read. Hallucination: a confident statement that is untrue or unsupported. Source registry: a list of every source the agent actually opened.