// Preparing knowledge for AI
How to prepare a knowledge base an AI assistant can use
Useful answers start with maintained sources, clear access boundaries and a reliable way to say that the answer is missing.
agentoriq · Practical guide · 3 min read
Start with the questions people actually ask
Collect recurring questions from the team or support queue and group them by task. Choose a narrow first scope, such as helping employees find an onboarding procedure. For each question, identify the document that should support the answer. If no reliable source exists, write or clarify that material before adding an assistant. An AI system cannot resolve contradictory policy simply by searching more documents.
Create a small, maintained source collection
Give each source a clear title, owner and review date. Separate current instructions from historical notes and working drafts. Keep important steps in readable text rather than screenshots alone. Break long documents into sections with descriptive headings, while retaining context such as who a procedure applies to. When two documents disagree, choose an authoritative source and record the correction instead of asking the assistant to guess.
Keep existing access boundaries intact
An employee should not receive information through an assistant that they could not otherwise access. Plan how the system checks permission before retrieving material, and test with users who have different access levels. Consider the answer and its source links together: both can expose restricted information. Start with a deliberately limited collection if your current permissions are too inconsistent to rely on.
Require sources and useful uncertainty
Ask the assistant to point to the material supporting an answer and distinguish a documented instruction from a suggestion. A citation is useful only if the linked passage actually supports the statement. When sources are missing, outdated or conflicting, the next action should be a clarification or handoff to an owner. A confident-looking answer is not a substitute for a maintained source.
Example: a question about an onboarding exception
Imagine a colleague asks whether a client can start before all setup information has arrived. The knowledge base contains a standard checklist but no exception rule. The assistant should link the checklist, explain that it does not resolve this case and direct the question to the process owner. Once the owner documents a decision, that new guidance can support future answers within its stated scope.
Test answers and maintain the collection
Prepare sample questions with expected sources, including unclear requests, unavailable answers and restricted documents. Have a knowledgeable person review accuracy, relevance and permission handling before expanding access. Provide a way to report an incorrect answer. Review changed documents and unresolved questions regularly. Measure whether people can complete their task with the answer, rather than counting every generated response as a successful resolution.