How Are You Verifying AI-Generated Citations in 2026?

Hey everyone,

I’ve started using AI more during the early stages of literature reviews mainly for summarizing papers and finding related work. It’s been a huge time-saver, but citation accuracy keeps tripping me up. Some references look completely legit proper formatting, realistic author names, convincing journal titles but when I try to find them, they either don’t exist or the details are slightly off.

Right now my workflow is mostly manual:

Searching titles on Google Scholar

Checking DOIs individually

Visiting journal websites to confirm authors, year, and volume

It works, but it feels slow and repetitive, especially when you’re checking dozens of sources.

Recently I tried Citely AI to validate AI-suggested references. It flags mismatches in author names, years, and journal info, which has already saved me some time but I’m still experimenting with the best workflow.

Curious what others are doing in 2026. Are you verifying citations fully manually, using specific tools, or combining both? Any tips to make this process faster without risking accuracy?