What to do when your agent gets a fact about a client wrong
What to do when AI research about a client is wrong, a risk in using AI agents for client work: correct the source, check what it touched, tell the client.
A web designer's agent researches a physio clinic and notes that it's open on Saturdays. Her first message to the owner mentions it: "Your weekend patients could book online." The reply comes back politely: "We haven't opened on Saturdays for two years." The fact came from an old directory listing the agent found and trusted. Nothing terrible happened. But the first thing the owner learned about her was that she'd got something wrong about his clinic.
Every agent gets facts wrong sometimes, and anyone using AI agents for client work will meet this. What matters is what you do in the next ten minutes.
When your agent gets a client fact wrong, correct it where the agent will read it next time, with the right answer, where it came from and the date. Keep the old value and its source visible. Check everything built on the wrong fact before it goes anywhere else. If the client saw it, tell them briefly. Then change how you ask, so the same kind of mistake is less likely.
Why does an AI agent get facts wrong?
Knowing where a mistake came from tells you how to fix it. Most wrong facts about a local business come from one of three places:
- An old or wrong source. Directories, old news stories and abandoned social pages keep saying things the business stopped doing years ago. The agent found a real page; the page was out of date.
- The wrong business. Two cafés with similar names in neighbouring suburbs, or a clinic that shares a name with a chain. Facts from one end up in the other's notes.
- A guess. OpenAI's research note from September 2025 describes hallucinations as plausible but false statements, and says models are often rewarded for guessing rather than admitting they don't know. Small local businesses, with little written about them, are exactly where gaps get filled.
Anthropic's guide to reducing hallucinations recommends asking for a source for each claim and letting the model say it doesn't know. With a source beside the Saturday hours, the designer could have seen at a glance that the only evidence was a directory page, not the clinic's own site.
What do you do first when you spot a wrong fact?
Work through it in this order:
- Stop anything that uses it. Hold any draft message, page or quote that mentions the fact until you've fixed it.
- Find the right answer from a better source. The business's own website, its own map listing, or the owner. Note which, and the date.
- Find where the wrong fact came from. Ask the agent for the link. If it can't give one, treat the fact as a guess.
- Correct the notes. More on how below.
- Check what else it touched. Drafts, homepage copy, the quote, the FAQ.
The order matters because the tempting fix, correcting the one message in front of you, leaves the wrong fact sitting in your notes, where the agent will find it again next week.
How do you correct the record so it stays corrected?
Write the correction next to the original, not over it:
Saturday hours: closed. Source: the owner, by email, 17 June.
Previously noted: open Saturdays. Source: an old directory page, seen 1 June. Out of date.
Keeping the old value visible does two things. You can see what kind of mistake it was, and so can the agent. It's less likely to "rediscover" the same directory page and bring the wrong fact back.
Put the correction where the agent will read it. If your client notes live in files or an app the agent works from through MCP (see what MCP means for the plain-words version), correct them there. A correction typed into one chat disappears when the chat ends.
A small table helps you spot patterns over a few months:
| Wrong fact | Where it came from | What you changed |
|---|---|---|
| Open Saturdays | Old directory listing | Ask the agent to prefer the business's own pages |
| Owner's name | A different business with a similar name | Ask for the address beside every source |
| "Established 1998" | No source given | Ask for "not found" instead of a guess |
If the same source turns up in the left column twice, tell the agent to stop using it.
What else might the wrong fact have touched?
A wrong fact rarely stays in one place. By the time you spot it, it may already be in:
- a first message or a reply draft;
- the proposal or quote ("online booking for your weekend patients");
- homepage copy, the FAQ or the opening hours on a site you're building;
- your notes for the next call.
Search your notes and drafts for the fact itself. Then look at the site with fresh eyes before the client does. The same care you'd use to review an AI built website applies here: read the words against the facts you've confirmed, not the facts the agent gave you.
How serious is the mistake?
Not every wrong fact needs the same response. Sort it quickly:
| Kind of fact | Example | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Background only | The year the business opened | Correct the notes; nothing else |
| Used in a draft | Saturday hours in a first message | Correct the notes and the draft before it goes |
| Seen by the client | The Saturday line in a sent email | Correct everything and tell them briefly |
| On a live site or in a quote | Wrong hours on the homepage, wrong service in a quote | Fix it the same day and tell the client what changed |
The last row is the one to take most seriously. Customers read live pages and act on them, and a quote is something the client may hold you to. Anything customers or money depend on gets fixed first, and fixed everywhere.
What do you say to the client?
If the mistake never left your notes, fix it and move on. If the client saw it, say so briefly and plainly:
"You're right, and thanks for telling me. I had Saturdays down from an old listing. I've corrected it everywhere, and nothing with the old hours will go on your site."
Don't over-apologise and don't explain the AI. The owner cares that it's fixed and that you'll check next time.
The better outcome is that the client never sees it. That's the case for having your agent draft and you send: if you approve what your agent sends before it reaches a client, the Saturday line gets caught at your desk, not in the owner's inbox.
How do you stop the same mistake next time?
Change the request, not only the answer:
- Ask for a source and a date beside every fact.
- Tell the agent to prefer the business's own website and listing over directories and old articles.
- Ask for the address beside each source, so mix-ups between similar businesses show.
- Say that "not found" is a good answer.
- Mark facts as checked or unchecked, and only use checked ones in anything a client will read.
If you set up AI research on a local business this way from the start, most wrong facts arrive already looking doubtful. And whatever the agent finds, the old habit still holds: research a business before pitching, then turn anything you're unsure of into a question for the owner.
Where Volant fits
Volant keeps researching local businesses to pitch in one place, with the sources beside the facts. Your agent researches a business and shows its sources. You correct the facts before anything uses them. No made-up scores. With or without it, the fix is the same: correct the fact where the agent reads, keep the old source visible, and check what it touched.