Need context on a controversial figure? Want to understand how misinformation spreads? Checking that ₱500 Noche Buena claim, or historical revisionism surrounding Martial Law?
That’s what SEEK does. Today, we’re launching our new AI search assistant that lets you explore 17 years of VERA Files fact checks, fact sheets and reports through conversation with our archive. Think of it as having a research partner who’s read everything we’ve ever published since 2008 (over 5,000 stories!) and tries to help you find what you’re looking for.
Whether you’re a student researching for a paper, a teacher preparing lessons, a journalist doing background research, or simply someone tired of not knowing what to believe online… SEEK has got your back.
No more digging through our website and just getting links. Ask a question, and SEEK gives you clear answers with sources you can verify yourself.
Watch the short tutorial below. Access our chatbot at seek.verafiles.org.
Why build SEEK?
SEEK (short for Search Experience, Elevated to Knock out Disinformation) is an exploratory project for VERA Files. Our team has been learning about AI and its applications in journalism since 2022, and winning a grant under the JournalismAI Innovation Challenge in 2024 gave us the seed money to put our newfound knowledge to the test.
We wanted to address this challenge: “How do we make it easy for our audiences to search for facts?”
From here came the idea to create SEEK, designed to take the extra work out of online searching for those interested in researching misinformation trends, understanding current events, and wanting deeper context on issues and personalities.
VERA Files is one of the 35 newsrooms around the world selected for the 2024 JournalismAI Innovation Challenge, from a pool of 700 applicants. It was also the only one chosen from Southeast Asia. The Challenge was organized by Polis, the journalism think tank at the London School of Economics, and was supported by Google News Initiative.
How SEEK works
SEEK uses VERA Files’ database of articles as its knowledge base, and it uses a large language model (i.e. Claude 4.5 Sonnet) to craft an answer.
When you ask a question, it will search its knowledge base according to how it understands your question. Together with the relevant information it gathered from the articles, SEEK instructs the LLM to give you a clear, conversational answer.
However, LLMs by nature are non-deterministic, which means that it can produce different answers even when given the same question or prompt. AI may also misunderstand or hallucinate, which is why we keep a reminder in the app to always check the cited sources.
Likewise, SEEK has been trained to admit when it does not know something. Report any issues via the button on the upper right corner of SEEK.
A chatbot uniquely built on Filipino context
The SEEK Team started working on the chatbot this January, led by VERA Files’ head of online verification Celine Samson.
During our user research phase, one of our interviewees said that VERA Files’ chatbot needs to understand Pinoy context because “AI has a bias for white, male contexts.”
That is exactly SEEK’s edge. It is grounded on Philippine reporting.
Apart from reports authored by VERA Files staff, SEEK’s knowledge base includes analyses by Tsek.ph, select articles by contributors and in-depth reports by the UP Third World Studies Center. Opinion pieces, editorials and columns were not included.
When we beta tested SEEK in August, this particular strength of SEEK on Philippine reporting proved to be valuable for a speechwriter responsible for vetting organizations. SEEK flagged a connection between the organization and the fugitive pastor Apollo Quiboloy, which he said was information that did not easily appear using other search tools.
“SEEK helped me be more thorough [with my research],” the speechwriter told us.
Over 70 people participated in our closed beta period last August, with participants across the Philippines, United Kingdom, Australia and Kenya. Eighty-two percent of those who completed our feedback form said they would recommend SEEK to others.
Go and see for yourself. Try SEEK today.