Technology
Extruct AI explained
Q: What kinds of questions can I ask?
You can ask any question about the company or a person as long as the answer exists on the public web or in one of the data sources we support directly (e.g., LinkedIn).
Q: How does it work?
Under the hood, Extruct employs LLM models that act as autonomous web research agents. These agents are equipped with tools like a search engine and can visit web pages. When you enter a question, the agent uses the tools at its disposal to find the information needed to answer the question. Once the answer is found, the agent returns it, taking into account any formatting instructions included in the question.
Q: Why should I trust the answers?
Extruct minimizes the so-called “LLM hallucinations” (the tendency of LLMs to provide responses that are either factually incorrect, nonsensical, or disconnected from the original prompt) by anchoring the LLMs to the context of web pages and search results it analyzes. Although research on LLMs has not yet found a foolproof method to eliminate hallucinations, Extruct is designed to mitigate them at multiple levels:
- LLM Prompt Design: At the foundational level, all our prompts are crafted to anchor LLM responses to the context they analyze. We validate all prompt changes by calculating the “hallucination rate” metrics using internal validation datasets.
- Post-Processing Verification: After the LLM has found an answer, we initiate a separate “verification” step. This step employs another LLM and a set of heuristics to confirm that the information supporting the answer genuinely exists in the cited sources.
- User Level: Ultimately, all answers seen by users are supported by explanations and citations that link to the sources where the answer was found. This approach enables straightforward auditing and verification of answers.
Q: Can it access LinkedIn data?
Yes, we do use a third-party provider to access real-time LinkedIn profile data. We have tested a dozen different LinkedIn scrapers and found the ones with the best data quality and freshness.
Q: How does it deal with anti-bot protection?
Do not worry — we’ve got you covered. Under the hood, Extruct AI uses best-in-class proxy infrastructure. Extruct can efficiently access any website, even the ones with the highest levels of anti-bot protection (Crunchbase, G2, ZoomInfo, etc.).