Research
Research is an AI-driven feature. While we strive for accuracy, citations and links can still contain errors. Always review and verify researched articles before publishing.
Research pulls in real-time information from the web when writing articles, grounding your content in current facts, statistics, and sources.
Research providers
Perplexity is the recommended research provider. It searches the web and returns summarised, cited information that Machined uses when writing your articles. Add your Perplexity API key in Settings → API Keys to enable it.
If no Perplexity key is configured, Machined falls back to built-in research using SERP data.
Research modes
Automatic research
Machined automatically searches the web based on the article's keyword and topic. It analyses the top-ranking sources and performs additional targeted searches to gather relevant facts and context.
You can optionally exclude specific domains from research — useful for filtering out competitors or low-quality sources.
Semi-automatic research
Provide up to 5 specific URLs for Machined to scrape and use as research sources. This gives you direct control over the context that informs your articles — useful for citing specific studies, your own content, or high-authority sources.
Both automatic and semi-automatic research can be used together.
References and citations
When research is enabled, Machined can include inline references and citations to the sources used. You can control the style and density in the article settings.
References
References are explicit callouts to a source, for example:
- "A study published in American Scientist found..."
- "According to Healthline..."
Citations
Citations are shorter attributions, typically in parentheses:
- "...dark chocolate is among the healthiest options (Healthline)."
Styles
| Style | Description |
|---|---|
| Inline | Links appear within the text where referenced |
| Footnote | All links moved to a References section at the end; inline text uses numbered footnotes |
Footnote style is useful when you want many citations without repeating the same external link multiple times in the body text.
Enabling research
Research is enabled per article. When creating a cluster or single article, expand Advanced Settings and toggle on Research.