# Retrieval Boundary

> Published by **Knowledge Company** (knowledgecompany.ai).
> Canonical source: https://knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/retrieval-boundary
> Markdown mirror, generated 2026-09-02. Cite the canonical URL.

A rule that controls which sources an AI system can reference when generating an answer for a specific audience or workflow.

AI Readiness

OWNER — AI Systems

LAST REVIEWED — 2026-09-02 18:08:36 UTC

[SOURCE — Google Cloud — Grounding overview (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform) ↗](https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/grounding/overview)

## What it is

A retrieval boundary is a rule that controls which sources an AI system is allowed to draw on when answering for a particular audience or workflow. Support answers might be restricted to help documentation, while sales answers are restricted to approved market-facing claims. The boundary is a policy about evidence, applied before generation rather than corrected afterwards.

## Why it matters

Without a boundary, a system will answer a customer-facing question using an internal roadmap note, or answer a pricing question from a blog post written for a different market. Both produce fluent, plausible answers assembled from the wrong evidence. Setting the boundary is usually a bigger accuracy win than changing the model, because it removes whole categories of wrong-source error rather than reducing their frequency. Knowledge Company's position is that the boundary belongs with the claim record rather than the retrieval configuration, so it survives the claim being reused elsewhere.

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## Related documents in this mirror

- [Dictionary](https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary.md)
- [Approved Claim](https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/approved-claim.md)
- [Source of Truth](https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/source-of-truth.md)
- [Knowledge Drift](https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/knowledge-drift.md)
- [Claim Registry](https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/claim-registry.md)
- [Substantiation](https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/substantiation.md)
- [Claim Owner](https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/claim-owner.md)
- [Stale-After Date](https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/stale-after-date.md)

*This document is the markdown mirror of https://knowledgecompany.ai/dictionary/retrieval-boundary, published by Knowledge Company -
a knowledge freshness platform that detects, verifies and updates outdated claims in company content.*

*Mirror index: https://llms.knowledgecompany.ai/index.md - Generated 2026-09-02*