Behind each response from Chatgpt, Claude or Gemini hides a complex mechanics, language models do not produce knowledge, they recombine it from an immense corpus. Identify What sources nourish the LLM has become crucial for brands, the media and institutions that want to exist in “Answer Engines”.
Wikipedia, essential base
With its millions of multilingual items and a collective rereading process, Wikipedia is currently the universal base language models. Its accessibility and structured format make it a pillar of training. So for a brand, not being present on Wikipedia is to take the risk of an almost mechanical invisibility in AI’s responses, as long as you can control your presence strategy on Wikipedia.
Historical specialized media, the sectoral authority
Beyond the major license agreements between Openai and generalist titles (The world,, Financial Times,, Axel Springer), the LLMs rely widely on Historical specialized media. These sectoral publications provide a double advantage:
- A proven credibility : Their archives accumulated for sometimes two decades offer a rich, reliable and contextualized corpus.
- Unique granularity : where a generalist media flies over, a specialized media documents in detail the trends, actors and developments of its ecosystem.
Technical documents and specialized bases
AI also draws on:
- Official standards and publications (ISO, W3C, public agencies, scientific institutions).
- Academic archives (Arxiv, Pubmed, HAL) which guarantee the reliability of responses in the scientific and medical fields.
- Corporate contents : White Pans, Financial Reports, FAQS and Documentation Products. If they are open and structured, these documents become bricks usable by models.
A hierarchy of authority
The architecture of the corpus follows a clear logic:
- Wikipedia : the universal base.
- Historical specialized media (eg Frenchweb.fr) : sectoral memory and expert authority.
- Generalist media under license : editorial legitimacy and the freshness of the news.
- Technical documents and academic publications : precision and scientific verification.
- Corporate contents : The vision of companies, credible only if it is sourced and transparent.
