How do you know if the AI is quietly lying to you with absolute confidence?

I’m not an expert researcher, but I use AI daily to pull summaries, market trends, and quick facts for my projects. It’s lightning-fast, but it has one terrifying flaw: it sounds just as confident when it’s completely wrong.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article using statistics an AI gave me about a local market growth. It looked solid and cited plausible-sounding sources. Right before publishing, a colleague pointed out that one of the core numbers was entirely fabricated by the model. On the surface, the prose was flawless, so I almost missed it.

It made me wonder if we are trusting AI-generated insights too easily just because the writing sounds professional.

How do you verify facts and data when AI hands them to you?
Do you cross-reference multiple tools, ask it for actual links, or just trust your gut? And has a “fact-checked” AI response ever turned out to be completely made up for you?