AI Reference
A practical snapshot of what major AI tools know from training, when they need live search, and how to avoid stale answers on current products, prices, policies, and news.
Reviewed May 26, 2026
For anything that changes weekly or daily, ask the tool to search the web and show sources. Perplexity, Gemini with Search Grounding, Grok with web or X Search, and ChatGPT with web search can retrieve newer facts than training alone.
Web access supplements the model; it does not rewrite the model. If search is off, unavailable, or skipped, the answer falls back to the model's trained knowledge window.
For software versions, licensing rules, product availability, vendor outages, laws, prices, and security issues, verify against the official vendor page before acting.
Snapshot
Cutoff dates change as vendors release new model versions. This table favors official vendor documentation where available, with third-party AI visibility sources used only as cross-checks for rows that vendors do not clearly publish.
Two-date note: Anthropic publishes both a training data cutoff (the last date in the training set) and a reliable knowledge cutoff (the date through which the model is most trustworthy). Other vendors usually publish a single date. When both are available, both are shown.
| Model or tool | Company | Training cutoff | Web access | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search-grounded or live-web capable | ||||
| Perplexity Sonar / Perplexity AI | Perplexity | N/A for the user-facing answer layer | Live search | Search-first answer engine. Best for current questions when citations matter, but still check the cited pages. |
| Gemini 3.1 / Gemini 3 | January 2025 | Google Search grounding | Gemini 3-family models list a January 2025 cutoff. Use Google Search grounding or URL context for newer facts. | |
| Grok 4.3 | xAI | December 2025 | Web + X Search tools | Released April 30, 2026 as xAI's flagship API model. Pairs a December 2025 training cutoff with live web and X Search tools. Older Grok 4 was commonly cited at November 2024. |
| Static training memory, newest cutoff first | ||||
| Claude Opus 4.7 | Anthropic | January 2026 | Optional tools | Most recent clearly vendor-stated cutoff in this snapshot. Claude may still need web tools for anything after January 2026. |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Anthropic | January 2026 training data; August 2025 reliable knowledge | Optional tools | Anthropic publishes two dates: training data extends to January 2026, while the “reliable knowledge” window is August 2025. Use web tools for events after that. |
| GPT-5.5 | OpenAI | December 1, 2025 | Optional tools | Current OpenAI docs list GPT-5.5 as the recommended flagship model. Older cutoff lists may still name GPT-5.2. |
| Mistral Large 3 | Mistral AI | December 2025 | Product-dependent | Released December 2, 2025. Other Mistral model cards (Medium, Small) are versioned independently and may not list a cutoff in the same format. |
| Claude Opus 4.6 | Anthropic | August 2025 training data; May 2025 reliable knowledge | Optional tools | Older flagship still widely deployed. Reliable knowledge cutoff is earlier than Sonnet 4.6, despite the higher tier. |
| GPT-5.4 | OpenAI | August 31, 2025 | Optional tools | Mid-cycle update between GPT-5.2 and GPT-5.5. Shares the August 2025 cutoff with GPT-5.2. |
| GPT-5.2 | OpenAI | August 31, 2025 | Optional tools | Launched December 2025. Still appears as the “recent” OpenAI flagship in many third-party cutoff tables. |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic | July 2025 training data; February 2025 reliable knowledge | Optional tools | Fast, lower-cost Claude. Useful for routing or high-volume tasks where the older reliable-knowledge window is acceptable. |
| Llama 4 Scout / Maverick | Meta | August 2024 | None by default | Open-weight model family. It can become web-aware only if the app around it adds retrieval or browsing. |
| GPT-4o | OpenAI | October 1, 2023 | Optional tools | Still common in integrations. Without web search, it is stale for late-2023 onward changes. |
How to Use This
Use language like, "Search the web and cite current official sources." This is especially important for outages, pricing, product names, laws, release dates, and security issues.
A current answer should point to a source that was published or updated recently enough for the question. A 2024 source may be fine for a definition, but not for a 2026 license change.
Chat apps often route between models. If a workflow matters, check which model answered, whether web search ran, and whether the answer includes citations.
AI is great for summarizing and comparing. For configuration, licensing, legal, security, or production changes, use the vendor's current documentation as the final authority.
Sources Reviewed