Knowledge base
Quick definition
A knowledge base is an organised, searchable collection of information about a product, service or organisation, used by customers, support teams and AI assistants to find answers. It typically holds FAQs, guides, policies and procedures.
On this page
What goes into a knowledge base
For a business, a knowledge base usually brings together help articles and FAQs, policies (delivery, returns, warranty, privacy), product documentation and buying guides, and internal procedures for the support team. In e-commerce, the product catalog is a knowledge source of its own, with structured fields such as price, size and stock.
A public knowledge base serves customers directly. An internal one serves agents, and often contains more detail. An AI assistant can draw on both, as long as it knows which information it may share with customers.
Why it matters for AI assistants
A language model does not know your policies or your catalog. An AI assistant answers from your knowledge base through retrieval-augmented generation (RAG): it searches the base for the passages relevant to each question and writes its answer from them. The quality of the answers therefore depends directly on the knowledge base — what is missing, ambiguous or out of date there will be missing, ambiguous or out of date in the answers.
The Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) methodology from the Consortium for Service Innovation makes a related point for human teams: capture knowledge as a by-product of solving cases, and improve it every time it is used.
Keeping it accurate
Three habits make the difference. Write one clear answer per question, with the conditions and exceptions spelled out, rather than marketing pages that hint at the answer. Remove or update outdated content instead of adding a contradicting page — an assistant that finds two different return windows will pick one. And use the questions the assistant could not answer as a to-do list.
Live data — stock, order status, opening exceptions — should come from systems through tools, not from copies in documents that will drift.
Knowledge in AI SmartTalk
An AI SmartTalk assistant can learn from website pages imported from a sitemap, uploaded files such as PDF, Word, Excel and CSV, FAQ entries, and connected sources including Google Drive, SharePoint, Docusaurus, RSS feeds, CSV files by URL and the product catalogs of PrestaShop, WooCommerce, Shopify and Joomla. Several of these connectors re-sync on a schedule. The admin lists questions the assistant missed, and FAQ entries can be suggested from existing documents and pages.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a knowledge base and an FAQ?
An FAQ is a short list of common questions and answers. A knowledge base is broader: it includes FAQs but also guides, policies, procedures and product information, organised and searchable.
How big should a knowledge base be for an AI chatbot?
Size matters less than coverage of real questions. Start from the questions customers actually ask — support tickets, chat logs, emails — and make sure each has a clear, current answer.
Can an AI assistant use internal documents?
Yes, but separate what customers may see from what is internal only. An assistant answers from whatever it is given, so confidential procedures should not sit in a public assistant's knowledge.