Forum Discussion
Azure OpenAI - If I add a data source, it no longer follows my instructions on how to respond?
Hi everyone, I've been messing with Azure OpenAI for a few days and find it pretty cool. One issue I have though is I will give it example prompts, and fill in the "Give the model instructions and c...
This is expected when you add a data source with Azure OpenAI "on your data". The retrieved content and grounding rules become part of the model context, so they can strongly influence the answer.
Turning off "limit responses to your data" lets the model use its base knowledge, but it still will not browse the internet unless you add a separate search/tooling layer.
The clean pattern is orchestration:
1. Route document-specific questions to Azure AI Search/RAG.
2. Route general questions to a normal chat completion.
3. Add a web-search tool if current internet answers are required.
4. Tune strictness and system instructions so the model knows when it may answer from retrieved data versus general model knowledge.