Article • 5 min read
Building a foundation for AI success: Why your knowledge base is key
We’ve identified five critical steps to get your knowledge base AI-ready.
Senast uppdaterad April 1, 2025
This is part 4 of our AI Readiness series, designed to help CX organizations prepare to take full advantage of AI’s benefits. For more insights, please check out our other resources listed at the bottom of this article.
AI is only as powerful as the information it has access to. Without a strong knowledge base to pull from, AI won’t be able to deliver the accurate, relevant answers that actually help customers. That means more time spent by both customers and agents trying to resolve the issue. And no one wants that.
Just as human agents require training, AI does, too. Knowledge bases help to structure and organize information that AI can use, traditionally things like FAQ articles or troubleshooting guides, and our more advanced Knowledge Graph takes that a step further. It widens the knowledge aperture to sources beyond the traditional help center, helping AI capture important details that enable better service for customers and internal teams.
That’s why prioritizing and updating these sources is critical for CX leaders looking to maximize their AI impact in 2025. And the timing couldn’t be more urgent—customer interactions are set to surge 34 percent, while CX teams shrink fivefold.
Just ask Degreed. By connecting an AI agent to its knowledge base to answer routine requests, its CX team stayed lean through hyper-growth—saving the business $1 million. Now, 400 tickets per month are resolved with AI.
With 70 percent of customers already noticing a gap between companies using AI effectively and those falling behind, CX leaders cannot afford to wait. Here are five strategies to optimize your knowledge base and scale self-service with AI.
1. Start by identifying your FAQs
Begin by auditing your ticket data to identify your most common customer questions. This might include product troubleshooting, account management, or billing issues. Prioritize creating content for high-volume questions first, as these have the greatest impact on customer support efficiency.
Leverage AI-powered analytics to find content gaps. AI can flag topics based on your ticket data and the questions your customers ask most. For clarity, plan to create a dedicated article for each specific question—keeping content focused on a single topic helps AI extract precise, accurate information.
2. Empower your agents to contribute
Adopt a Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS®) approach, which involves building processes that enable your team to contribute to your knowledge base. Your agents understand your customers better than anyone—so harness their expertise to strengthen your knowledge base. Involving them in content creation not only enhances your support resources but also helps them develop valuable skills such as written communication, customer-centricity, and collaboration.
Help center tools integrated with your agents’ workspace can empower them to create and update articles in real-time as they resolve tickets—streamlining content creation and ensuring accuracy. AI takes this a step further, transforming bullet points into polished articles and refining content for clarity. At the same time, it helps your team build AI proficiency, making AI a natural part of their workflow.
3. Prioritize AI best practices when creating content
To help AI understand your content and extract the right information, keep AI best practices in mind. For example, AI performs best with clear, structured information, so keep your content concise and scannable. Place key concepts within the first 75 words of a page to help surface answers quickly. And when outlining steps, use ordered lists to ensure clarity and direction.
Use clear and simple language, ideally at a 7th-grade reading level, to improve comprehension. Add alt text and context to images so AI can interpret them correctly as well. Article length matters too—content under 100 words or over 500 increases the risk of AI hallucinations.
On the backend, categorize and label articles by topic so AI can quickly pinpoint the most relevant content instead of scanning your entire library each time.
4. Connect AI tools to your knowledge base
Once your knowledge base is organized and optimized, it’s time to connect AI tools. Two high-impact solutions are AI-powered agents and AI-assisted tools for your human agents.
AI agents can tap into your knowledge base to deliver instant, 24/7 answers to common customer questions. By automating routine inquiries, AI frees up your human agents to focus on more complex issues that require a personal touch.
When it comes to those requests that are better suited for your human agents, AI copilots can surface relevant knowledge base articles in real time as agents handle tickets. This helps them resolve nuanced issues faster and more accurately. Agents can also share these articles with customers, providing additional resources when needed. Plus, direct access to help center content serves as an invaluable onboarding tool, helping new agents learn faster and tackle issues with confidence.
5. Continuously update your knowledge base
KCS® isn’t just about creating content—it’s about continuous improvement. Knowledge management is an ongoing process, not a “set it and forget it” approach.
Regularly analyzing search keywords can reveal what customers are looking for but aren’t finding, helping you identify content gaps. Beyond improving self-service, these insights help you identify high-effort experiences—where customers struggle with your product or to find answers. Addressing those friction points can enhance the overall customer journey and drive meaningful upstream improvements.
AI-powered insights take this further by flagging outdated articles, highlighting areas that need updates, and even recommending content for removal. Reviewing the questions customers ask your AI agent is equally important—it helps uncover missing topics and ensures your AI delivers the most relevant, up-to-date information.
Don’t wait to take action
Your knowledge base is the fastest, most accessible entry point to AI—and CX leaders have no time to waste. In fact, 73 percent agree that only companies that scale AI adoption will withstand the competitive pressures of the next five years.
With Zendesk, you can integrate AI with your knowledge base in minutes. Get started today and stay ahead.
KCS® is a service mark of the Consortium for Service Innovation.
Read more from our AI Readiness series:
AI Readiness Part 1: A 5-step checklist
AI Readiness Part 2: Agent copilots
AI Readiness Part 3: AI agents
