Assistants that answer fromyour own content
An assistant answers questions for customers or staff with answers drawn from your own documents, such as help articles, policies and manuals. Each answer shows where it came from, and when the answer isn't there, it says so.
- Group
- Build
- First step
- A pilot for one assistant
- You decide
- Go or no-go, after the pilot
- Works with
- Help center, intranet, policies, manuals
When an assistant is the right fit
Assistants suit questions that have a written answer somewhere. If the answer depends on judgment, a person should give it.
- 01
The same questions arrive every day, and the answers are already written down.
- 02
Staff spend time searching folders, wikis and old emails for the current policy.
- 03
Customers wait for answers that could be given straight away, with a person for the rest.
What we build
- 01Customer assistants for your website or help center, with a clear route to a person.
- 02Staff assistants for policies, procedures and product knowledge.
- 03Search that returns a short answer with links to the exact source.
- 04Assistants inside your support tools that draft replies for agents to check.
- 05Admin screens where your team updates content and reviews flagged answers.
How it works
The assistant looks the question up in your content first, then answers only from what it found.
- 01Your content is indexed, so the assistant can find the right passage.
- 02Each answer links to its sources, so people can check it.
- 03If nothing matches, it says so and offers a person.
Safeguards
The main risk with assistants is a confident answer that's wrong. Most safeguards exist to prevent that.
- Answers that sound right but aren't
- Answers are drawn only from your content and show their sources. Replies without a source are designed to be held back.
- Out-of-date information
- The index refreshes when content changes, and retired documents are removed from search.
- Showing a user what they shouldn't see
- Staff assistants follow the same permissions as your document systems.
- Questions it shouldn't answer
- Topics you choose, such as legal, medical or account changes, go straight to a person.
- Quality drifting over time
- Flagged answers are reviewed, and a set of test questions is rerun after every change.
How to start
One assistant, one topic area, your content
It delivers:
- A working assistant for one audience and one topic area
- Your content indexed, with sources on every answer
- An evaluation sheet of real questions, marked Passed or Needs review
- A go or no-go recommendation, with running costs
- Price
- Fixed, agreed before we start
- Length
- Usually 4 to 8 weeks
Content scattered or out of date? Start with Data Foundations for AI.
Questions
What does 'answers drawn from your own documents' mean?
The assistant searches your content for the passages that answer the question, then writes a reply using only those passages. You may hear this called retrieval-augmented generation.
What happens when it doesn't know?
It says so plainly and offers a way to reach a person. It's designed not to guess.
Can it work in our existing help center or chat tool?
Usually, yes. During the pilot we'll check how your tools allow it to be added.
Who keeps the content up to date?
Your team, using the tools you already use. The assistant picks up changes when the index refreshes.
Can staff see only what they're allowed to?
Yes. A staff assistant can follow the permissions of your document systems.
Tell us one job you'd like AI to do
We'll tell you honestly whether AI is the right fit, and what a sensible first step looks like.
Thanks. We'll reply within one business day.
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