What Is an AI Knowledge Base? and How Do You Build One?
Let’s learn everything you need to know about AI knowledge base and how to build one of your own.
Content Map
More chaptersIn business, being able to access the right information (at the right time) is vital to making important decisions. The right information can help a customer or employee resolve their issue quickly. It can also help them avoid similar issues in the future.
While a conventional knowledge base is a great source of valuable information, it does have its downsides. For one, filling the gaps in a conventional knowledge base manually can be time-consuming, slowing down productivity.
This is where an AI knowledge base can help. In this article, you will learn what an AI knowledge base is, how it works, and how to incorporate it into your business.
What Is an AI Knowledge Base?
An AI knowledge base refers to a centralized digital repository used to store, manage, and organize essential company information. This information may come from a range of sources, such as company policies, technical documentation, and how-to guides.
As the name implies, an AI knowledge base uses advanced technology to provide enhanced functionality. The two most prominent AI technologies are natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML). Together, these technologies allow an AI knowledge base to collect vast amounts of information and provide contextually relevant information.
How popular are AI knowledge bases? According to research, 70% of customer service leaders agree that AI in customer service can help speed up resolution times.
How Does an AI Knowledge Base Work?
An AI knowledge base works just like a conventional knowledge base. But it has enhanced capabilities. A conventional knowledge base stores and presents information in the form of articles, how-to guides, and FAQs. Then, users process this information manually to answer their queries.
An AI knowledge base, on the other hand, works differently. To retrieve information from an AI knowledge base, users interact with a text prompt. They type in written questions or instructional messages, receiving accurate and timely responses in natural language.
To answer a text prompt from a user, the system uses ML to draw information from the training data. It then employs NLP to understand the context of the query and respond to it in a natural, easy-to-understand way. The use of ML also helps the system learn from past interactions and improve the quality of its responses.
What Are the Benefits of an AI Knowledge Base?
There are many benefits to using an AI knowledge base in your business. It can help your customer support team answer queries faster and more accurately, increasing productivity and improving the customer experience.
Let’s cover the other advantages of using an AI knowledge base in your business.
Streamline Customer Self-Service
AI knowledge bases allow customers to perform their own self-service queries. There is no need to wade through troves of documents to find essential information. Instead, users type in a prompt and receive an accurate response in seconds.
Aside from being faster than a conventional knowledge base, AI knowledge bases ensure 24/7 support, thus increasing customer satisfaction. Human customer support staff can also use AI knowledge bases to answer customer queries. According to research, 45% of customer service reps agree that AI is useful in helping human staff solve customer queries.
Reduce Operational Costs
AI knowledge bases can help reduce the operating cost of providing customer support. Research shows that AI can help reduce customer service costs by up to 30%.
Customers can interact with a self-service portal to answer their queries instead of speaking to a human. This helps companies save on manual labor costs. And customers can still escalate their matter to a human if AI cannot answer their query.
Speed Up Onboarding and Training
AI knowledge bases can help companies save time and effort on onboarding and training employees. New candidates can access a centralized hub to gather all the right info to get up to speed, including training materials, FAQs, and troubleshooting guides.
AI knowledge bases can also personalize the learning experience, recommending specific content to help improve a candidate’s weak areas. Personalizing the learning path can help companies address their skill gaps and boost employee morale by enabling them to excel at what they do best.
What Software Options Are There for AI Knowledge Bases?
For an AI knowledge base to function properly, your business needs the right software. The good news? You can pick from a range of software to collect, organize, and manage the data in your AI knowledge base.
However, there are downsides to choosing the wrong software. For example, if you deploy a tool lacking in access permission controls, your business could be at risk of a cybersecurity breach. Understanding the features and benefits of different AI knowledge-base software can help you make the best choice.
Here are our picks for the best AI knowledge bases today:
Slite
Launched in 2017, Slite is an AI knowledge base with many advanced capabilities. It is a central repository of information that teams can use to collaborate on projects, share documents, and stay in touch.
With Slite, employees can work together on projects in real-time. They can edit documents, leave comments, and track the status of individual tasks. Slite also has AI capabilities, which teams can use to keep their knowledge base up to date and make their company information easily accessible.
Key Features
- AI-powered editor for fast and efficient documentation
- AI-driven insights to help your team identify and fill knowledge gaps
- Intuitive search function to access trusted company information
Price: Starting from $8 per month/member
HubSpot Breeze
HubSpot Breeze is a suite of AI-powered tools. It consists of two main components: Breeze AI and Breeze Intelligence. Breeze AI has two separate AI companions – Copilot and Agents – that teams can use to assist with tasks and automate workflows.
Breeze Intelligence automatically gathers data from over 200 million buyers and company profiles. This data helps your business better understand your customer’s buyer intent. Using artificial intelligence in sales helps your team prioritize leads most likely to convert into customers.
Also, Breeze Intelligence helps keep your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database up to date. This ensures your CRM data is always accurate and reliable, improving the performance of your sales and customer service departments.
Key Features
- Breeze AI Copilot to serve as a personal assistant
- Breeze Agents to automate routine workflows
- Breeze Intelligence to keep CRM data up to date
Price: Starting from $42 per month
Starmind
Starmind is an AI knowledge base that promotes itself as an ‘Expertise Directory.’ It is designed to help your team acquire timely and accurate information from industry experts within your organization.
Starmind is simple to use. Users interact with the system by asking it a question. Starmind’s AI capabilities analyze the question and route the user’s question to a qualified team member within your organization who can answer the question accurately.
Key Features
- StarGPT for instant access to company information
- Third-party integration capabilities
Price: Starting from $6 per month/user
Capacity
Capacity is an AI-powered knowledge base designed to help keep your company’s data neatly organized and easily accessible. This makes it easier for your team to acquire the right information at the right time.
Capacity uses over 40 algorithms to help understand user queries and provide accurate responses. It can also automatically mine documents to create Q&A pieces and integrate with over 150 apps.
Key Features
- Centralized knowledge base for easy team access
- Automated workflows across various departments
Price: Starting from $49 per month/user
Document360
Document360 is an AI knowledge management platform with powerful tools to help your team create and curate private, public, and mixed knowledge bases.
Document360 consists of two components, the project dashboard and the knowledge base portal. The project dashboard lets you manage any projects you own. You can also manage projects associated with a reader or team leader.
Key Features
- Project dashboard for easy project management
- Knowledge base portal for easy creation and management of knowledge bases
Price: Custom pricing per plan
Building an AI Knowledge Base
Getting started with artificial intelligence may be overwhelming. This is especially true if you are not an expert in the field.
Step 1: Approach an AI Development Team
An AI development team can seamlessly incorporate a custom or white-label AI knowledge base into your business.
When searching for an AI development team, evaluate their:
- Skillset: Choose a team with experience using different AI technologies, such as NLP, ML, computer vision, deep learning, and predictive analytics.
- Previous experience: Review the portfolio section of each AI development services company website. Read case studies on projects similar to your own. Evaluate their ability to achieve the outcomes you desire.
- Communication: The field of AI is full of complex technical jargon. When you talk to AI developers, evaluate their written and vocal communication skills. Ideally, they should be able to translate complex topics into terms you understand.
Step 2: Establish Clear Goals
Determine the goals that you want your AI knowledge base to achieve. Do you want to speed up customer service response times, automate workflows, or give your customer service staff more time to focus on advanced tasks?
Speak to your AI services development team about your goals. They can help you identify your existing pain points. Plus, they can help you determine which AI knowledge base software and strategy best fits your needs.
Some key aspects to define include the project’s:
- Purpose
- Target audience (inc. pain points)
- Expected outcomes
- Key functionalities (e.g., customer service, internal knowledge sharing)
Step 3: Gather Data from Reliable Sources
Gathering the right data is vital to the success of your AI knowledge base. The type of data you import can be structured or unstructured.
Structured data is highly organized and easily searchable but has limited usage. Unstructured data has no predefined data model, but it comes in a range of file formats – emails, images, audio files – that can be analyzed to provide deeper insights. Big data databases can support unstructured data.
When approaching an AI development team, they will help you utilize the correct data type to support your AI knowledge base. Examples of different data sources include:
- Sales chatbot – Customer service logs, emails, and social media interactions
- Internal chatbot – Product documentation and manuals, support articles, tutorials
Step 4: Analyze and Optimize Data
Once you have gathered all the relevant data, the next step is to analyze and optimize it. This involves taking your data, incorporating it into the AI knowledge base, and testing it.
Your AI development services team will interact with the AI knowledge base to see how it responds under different circumstances. They will ensure the AI knowledge base can:
- Interpret human text and/or speech
- Understand the context of different queries
- Make sense of technical jargon and industry-specific language
Step 5: Keep Data Up to Date
After deploying your AI knowledge base, it is important to keep the data and its sources up to date.
Your AI development services team can take care of this for you. They can update relevant information, including:
- Company changes (e.g., new staff, leaving staff, job promotions)
- Software changes (e.g., bug fixes, security patches, new features)
- Policy updates
Harness the Full Potential of an AI Knowledge Base
An AI knowledge base is a powerful business tool. When set up and managed properly, it can help your business be more productive, satisfy customers, and gain deeper insights. Of course, you need an IT partner you can trust to bring your AI vision to life.
At Orient Software, our AI developers are highly skilled in all forms of AI development. Whether you require expertise in NLP, ML, deep learning, or anything else, we can help. We can analyze your existing processes and propose a custom AI solution to help you achieve your goals.
Ready to future-proof your business with an AI knowledge base? Contact us today.
Writer
Writer
