The Future of Knowledge Base in the Age of Generative AI

This paradigm shift is occurring in how knowledge base articles are created, consumed and how some actions are executed. This shift is being caused by the following technological trends and consumer behaviour

Consumers want to get things done quickly and will favour bots automating low-value mundane tasks
Consumers want approximate answers to their “right” questions so that they can accomplish things faster
Rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) simplifies knowledge discovery and content curation enabling non-technical consumers to adopt enterprise applications
Increase in human trust in AI systems

Writing for Humans

When a technical writer composes a knowledge base article, the content needs to be concise given the limitation of human attention span. The characteristics are dictated by biology, psychology, and cognitive capabilities. This translates to

Most humans have shorter attention spans – This limits the content length to a certain number of words and constraints reading time
Most humans prefer images and video for quick learning – This makes technical writers produce rich multimedia content such as screenshots, videos, and animated gifs
Most humans prefer simple language – This constrains technical writers to use a small set of words and vocabulary to articulate complex ideas in simple words
Humans are driven by emotions and ideology – The content needs to be inclusive and accessible to all humans. The content cannot exhibit any bias

Writing for an AI bot

Writing for an AI bot requires a mindset change on how technical writers create a new knowledge base article. An AI bot has unlimited computing power to synthesize new knowledge, unlimited storage to store huge volumes of information, and can interact with both humans and another AI bot!

Write content as explanatory as possible with a structure – Generative AI has the capability to summarize lengthy content into briefs and can explain complex ideas in simple terms
Provide more examples on scenarios – Providing conversation-like scenarios with examples helps Generative AI technologies to consume this content easily
Adding semantic metadata – Adding more metadata to annotate content enriches the content and augments the textual content
Include FAQs – Writing FAQs helps with training Generative AI with set of prompts (questions) with responses (answers)
Maintain a business glossary – A list of all business terms along with definitions, nuances, assumptions, metrics and so on
Related articles – A list of related articles from a technical writer’s point of view to the current articles