Google's internal decision about whether a query needs a live web search; below its threshold, the model answers from memory.
Query Deserves Grounding (QDG) is the decision an AI search system makes about whether a given query needs a live web search or can be answered from the model's trained-in knowledge. Google's documented default dynamic retrieval threshold for this is 0.3 — score above it and the query gets grounded, below it and the model answers from memory.
The distinction is decisive for AI visibility. Only grounded queries pull in live web content, so only grounded queries are ones your pages can be cited in. A query answered purely from parametric memory reflects whatever the model already absorbed during training.
We reverse-engineered this behaviour in our Grounding Classifier, trained on 10,000 real Gemini responses, and demonstrate it in our QDG tool. It's the same idea Google applies internally to keep fast, confident answers cheap and reserve web retrieval for questions that genuinely need fresh facts.
