A plausible number is not a verified number.
A ChatGPT database query can run successfully and still answer the wrong business question.
Common causes:
- the wrong metric definition
- an inherited tenant or environment scope
- stale upstream data
- a month or timezone boundary
- duplicate or late-arriving records
- a truncated result
- a confident summary of a provisional number
Before sharing the answer, reconcile it:
- write the metric, population, exclusions, time window, timezone, and currency
- bind it to an approved source and definition version
- record source freshness and upstream completion
- inspect typed results before the prose
- compare with an independent control
- explain material differences with a movement bridge
- preserve row count, truncation, filters, and trace evidence
- require a separate approval before publication
The best outcome is not always “the number matches.”
Sometimes it is: “The difference is explained, the source is late, and this answer is provisional.”
Full checklist: ChatGPT database query reconciliation
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