---
title: About Data Sources
description: What data sources are, why they matter, and how they power search, latest news, deep search, and analysis across the News module.
---

# About Data Sources

Data sources are the connections that bring content into the News module. Every search result, every "latest news" feed, and every document available for analysis comes from a data source. Without data sources, there is nothing to search, read, or analyze.

Navigate to [News → Data Sources]({APP_HOST}/documents/datasources/definitions) to view and manage the custom data sources available to your organization.

## What Is a Data Source?

A **Data Source** is a configured connection to an external content provider. It can point to a website, a social media channel, an RSS feed, a news portal, a technology platform, or a file store — anything that produces content you want to monitor or analyze.

Each data source has a set of **capabilities** that define what it can do. Depending on the capabilities, a data source can:

- Return the **latest** articles or posts
- Be **searched** by keyword or semantically
- Provide **comments** attached to documents

See [Data Source Capabilities](data-source-capabilities) for a full description of all capabilities.

## Built-in vs. Custom Data Sources

The News module combines two layers of data sources:

- **Built-in data sources** — Over 100 pre-configured sources maintained by the platform covering news portals, social media, and specialized content feeds. These are always available and require no configuration.
- **Custom data sources** — Sources you configure yourself. These let you target a specific website, social channel, RSS feed, or upload your own files, giving you focused coverage tailored to your organization's needs.

Custom data sources are managed on the [News → Data Sources]({APP_HOST}/documents/datasources/definitions) page.

## Data Source Types

Custom data sources fall into several categories:

- **Web** — Google Site search, RSS and Atom feeds, WordPress sites, Google Custom Search, and the Telex news portal
- **Social** — Facebook Pages and Profiles, YouTube Channels, Reddit Subreddits and Users, TikTok Users, Instagram Users, and Polymarket Events
- **AI-enhanced** — An AI-powered web page reader that uses a language model to extract structured content from any page (Beta), and a Combined source that merges several existing sources into one (Beta). See [Merged Data Sources](merged-data-sources).
- **Technology** — GitHub Repositories for tracking issues, pull requests, and discussions
- **Corporate** — Microsoft Outlook, OneDrive, Entra, Gmail, and Google Drive (coming soon)

See [Data Source Types](data-source-types) for details on each type.

## Enhanced Data Stores

In addition to online connections, the platform provides **Enhanced Data Stores** — private document stores where you can upload your own files or pull content from existing data sources and enrich it with vector search, AI transcription, OCR, and other processing capabilities.

Enhanced Data Stores are managed separately under [News → Data Sources → Enhanced Data Stores]({APP_HOST}/documents/pipelines).

See [Enhanced Data Stores](enhanced-data-stores) for a full explanation.

## Where Data Sources Are Used

Data sources appear throughout the News module:

| Where | What the data source provides |
|---|---|
| [News → Search]({APP_HOST}/documents/search) | The sources queried when you run a keyword or semantic search. See [About Search](../search/about-search). |
| [News → Deep Search]({APP_HOST}/documents/deepsearch) | The sources used during automated multi-step research |
| Dashboards | The sources powering "Latest News" and search-based dashboard tiles |
| Entities | Sources linked to an entity to collect media coverage automatically |

When you add a custom data source, it becomes immediately available for all these purposes across your organization.