What is a knowledge cutoff?

A model learns from a huge body of text collected up to a certain date. Then it is trained, tested and released. The date the text ends is the knowledge cutoff. Whatever happened after it, the model has never read about.

The gap is longer than you think

The cutoff is always before the release, sometimes well before. 3 examples from models released in 2026:

Google adds that in some subjects Gemini 3.8 Flash's knowledge ends in January 2025, over a year earlier than its headline cutoff. And a model stays in use for months after release, so by the time you ask, the gap can be a year or more.

What it looks like

Ask about last month's news, this year's prices or the newest version of a tool, and a model without a search may answer with what was true at its cutoff, as if it were still true. It may not mention that it could be out of date. This is one road to a HallucinationHallucinationWhen a model states something false as if it were true, such as a wrong date, a made-up quote or a source that does not exist..

Telling it the right answer helps for that conversation only. A model does not learn from your corrections. It answers from what is in front of it.

How models answer past it

The usual fix is to give the model fresh text at the moment it answers. With web search, the service runs the searches and hands the results to the model, which can then answer beyond its cutoff and cite its sources. Pasting a document or connecting your files does the same for your own material. That is the idea behind RAGRAGA way to answer from your own documents. A search finds the passages that match the question, and they are added to the prompt before the model writes..

What to do with this

For anything that changes, such as prices, versions, laws, people in a job or recent events, check that the answer used a search and cites a source with a date. If it did not, assume it may be out of date. You can find a model's cutoff on its maker's model page.