When was the last time you had a question at work?
No matter where you fall on the organizational chain, you probably have dozens of questions or issues come up in the workplace every day. You might get those questions answered by asking a colleague, searching for a product document, combing through a Slack channel, or pulling up a procedural PDF.
But digging for that information wastes a lot of time — 3.6 hours a day, on average. What if you had a comprehensive, centralized knowledge management system (KMS) that could deliver the exact data you need, right when you need it?
When done right, knowledge management systems help businesses:
- Improve employee productivity
- Reduce support desk burdens
- Decrease information retrieval times
- Boost overall operational efficiency
Knowledge bases help solve problems related to information silos and inconsistent knowledge access, and are more integral to business success than you might imagine.
Now we’ll dive into the challenges of knowledge management, benefits of an effective system, the different types of KMS, and how to select the best one for your business.
What is a knowledge management system?
At its core, a knowledge management system is internal business software that captures, validates, organizes, and distributes information.
Discovery: A piece of knowledge is discovered or identified.
Validation: That information is validated for accuracy, then is captured and stored in the system.
Categorization: The KMS organizes the information with categorization and metadata to ensure easy retrieval with search functions when needed.
Updates: The KMS will require ongoing updates to keep the knowledge relevant and useful.
How does this process work?
A traditional knowledge base may rely on manual processes, so a human has to create, document, and categorize each piece of information. As a result, traditional knowledge bases are often static and harder to navigate, offering limited manual searches and no real-time content generation.
But now, AI-powered knowledge management is playing a growing role. An AI-powered KMS automates this process, using machine learning (ML) algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) to automate the classification, organization, and retrieval of the information.
With artificial intelligence, knowledge bases are able to automatically deliver up-to-date information and responses in real time through sophisticated, natural language search systems, enhancing the user experience by personalizing content delivery and suggesting updates based on usage patterns.
Why do businesses need a knowledge management system?
While others in your organization may not understand the importance of a knowledge management system, you’re likely already aware that without a good KMS, your business will likely face knowledge silos, inefficiencies, and redundant work, all leading to user frustrations.
Common challenges without a knowledge management system
If your organization doesn’t have a knowledge management system or has a limited KMS, you may find yourself struggling with any number of the following issues:
- Users relying on outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate knowledge to make decisions: Users using incorrect information, such as a sales team referencing an old pricing document, could lead to customer dissatisfaction or increase your potential risk.
- Difficulty finding and retrieving information: If users are spending their time combing through old messages, outdated FAQs or messaging others for help, their productivity (and their satisfaction) could decrease.
- Increased support ticket volume: When users don’t have the information they need, they’re more likely to submit support tickets, increasing operational costs as the IT team is now flooded with requests.
- An overly-burdened support staff: Poor information access means more tickets and more overwhelmed support staff, who might then struggle to provide quality service.
- Prolonged mean time to resolution (MTTR): Without on-demand access to key information, it takes staff longer to solve problems, both internally and externally.
- Loss of institutional knowledge when employees leave: If you don’t have a quality KMS and storage systems in place, you risk losing knowledge when employees leave
- Inefficient onboarding and training: Onboarding covers a lot of information for new employees, who may only retain a small portion of that knowledge. A self-service knowledge base puts everything at their fingertips for faster ramp-up.
- Insufficient knowledge base utilization: A knowledge base remains useful when employees use it regularly. AI-powered systems are able to learn from user behavior and adapt to patterns over time — so the more you use your KMS, the better it will become.
How a knowledge management system solves these issues
Integrating a knowledge management system into your company’s day-to-day operations can be an efficient and effective way to solve the challenges, from poor information access to knowledge base utilization and more. By introducing a quality KMS, you are able to better centralize company knowledge within a single repository that people have easy access to 24/7.
The right KMS enables users to get instant answers on demand, increasing satisfaction and productivity and fostering better decision-making across teams and departments. In fact, cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks saved its hybrid workforce 351,000 productivity hours using Moveworks to transform their employee support and knowledge management.
In addition to reducing IT tickets and support team workloads with self-service options, a KMS can make your new employee onboarding process much easier. It also drives continuous learning for current team members and promotes organizational knowledge sharing.
A modern KMS even helps track usage, identify knowledge gaps, and update or draft new content autonomously, so you can keep all information fresh for employees who need it.
Key features of an effective knowledge management system
An effective knowledge management system is packed with features that streamline workflows and get the right knowledge to your team members when they need it. So, as you evaluate knowledge management software, prioritize features like:
AI-powered search and knowledge retrieval
AI-powered search and knowledge retrieval leverage NLP and machine learning to enable a KMS to provide instant, context-aware responses to natural language queries.
Employees can communicate their needs using everyday language, and the system can consider factors like their position, department, workflows, and past interactions to surface the most relevant resources.
Through advanced contextual understanding and continual learning, the AI is not only able to find suitable content but is also able to personalize recommendations, adapting over time to better meet user needs and offering related resources for a more comprehensive support experience.
Centralized knowledge base and content management
A knowledge base contains both structured and unstructured data. Structured data is already organized (think spreadsheets and databases), so it’s easy to search. Unstructured data, found in places like email or slide decks, is more difficult to store, categorize, and search.
A good knowledge management system will be able to organize and tag both structured and unstructured data so users can easily access all of it.
- AI-driven categorization can automatically analyze content and place it into logical categories.
- Tagging assigns metadata (like topics or keywords) to pieces of content so they’re easier to find in searches.
- Version control automatically updates documents to the most recent version, while still preserving previous versions and tracking who made what changes and when.
Integrations with existing business tools
Look for a KMS that integrates with the platforms you already use, like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and your ITSM systems Taking advantage of integrations ensures smooth data flows, gives you the flexibility to scale, and helps optimize your resources.
Plus, a system that connects with your existing tools will help save you time and streamline both workflows and knowledge management processes. Your team won’t need to learn how to use an entirely new tech stack — they can continue working with the platforms they’re already used to.
For example, an advanced solution like Moveworks provides an agentic AI-powered knowledge management system that integrates across your entire business environment to surface knowledge in real time.
Self-service and automation capabilities
A system with self-service capabilities gives employees (and customers) the ability to access knowledge independently.
When an employee asks a question, KMS systems with conversational AI or chat functionality will use natural language understanding (NLU) and NLP to pull an answer from the knowledge base.
KMS or AI assistants with agentic AI capabilities are able to plan, adapt, and take action — like automatically provisioning software — without needing support team involvement.
As a result, users increase their productivity, getting back to work faster with the information they need with an AI assistant who is always ready to help, regardless of time zone.
Types of knowledge management systems (with examples)
Your knowledge management software can be internal-facing or external, typically supporting either your customers or employees. The functionalities of these greatly differ, as to more traditional KMS or those powered by artificial intelligence and agentic AI.
External knowledge bases (for customers)
An external knowledge base is open to your customers or the general public and serves as a way for users to get answers on their own when they need support. It might include things like a “hub” of articles, an AI-powered chatbot, community forums, video tutorials, and FAQ sheets on your products or services.
What does this look like in practice? Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Post enables community-driven knowledge sharing to help people more successfully use AWS tools and solutions.
From one centralized hub, users can access curated, collective knowledge on a wide range of topics and ask questions of their peers, rather than waiting for a customer support agent to get back with them. This results in higher customer satisfaction and an overall better customer experience.
Internal knowledge bases (for employees)
An internal knowledge base is limited to your employees or members of a certain organization. It’s typically used for onboarding, managing policies, and collaboration, storing company information within the system so that all employees can access it when needed.
Internal knowledge management systems real-world examples include:
- Google’s original internal knowledge repository (MOMA)
- Notion
- Confluence
- Sharepoint
Just a few short years ago, these knowledge bases had to be updated manually. Access permissions and the search experience were complicated, with users having to comb through documents to find what they needed — similar to looking through an entire stack of printed papers for a single answer.
Now, most, if not all of them, include fully integrated AI features.
AI-powered knowledge management systems
AI takes traditional knowledge management platforms to a whole new level by adding automation, contextual awareness, and proactive delivery.
First, AI systems use NLP to understand the context of a user’s entire question — not just a single keyword. This helps the system provide much more accurate (and much faster) search results.
KMS which use conversational AI can help take pressure off your IT support team by answering FAQs, automatically addressing tier-one support tickets, and even provisioning software based on an employee’s role and permissions.
An AI-powered KMS can also help accelerate operational efficiencies by taking over repetitive tasks that were previously done manually, such as making sure all content is updated and identifying gaps in knowledge.
Maybe several of your team members have recently searched for Slack access instructions, but you don’t have any. The system would notify you to create some or even generate a knowledge article itself.
Artificial intelligence also automatically categorizes content so it’s easier to find (again, improving productivity and satisfaction).
Ultimately, AI knowledge systems, like Moveworks’ highly advanced AI-powered KMS, can be an effective way to scale knowledge and enhance efficiency and employee satisfaction, which leads to higher employee retention.
How to choose the right knowledge management system for your business
As you evaluate your options, you’ll want to keep considerations like scalability, AI capabilities, and integrations in mind. Follow these steps to identify which KMS aligns with your organizational needs and goals.
Assess your business needs and pain points
Think about your current business needs, goals, and challenges. Maybe your IT team is overwhelmed with constant support requests. In that case, you might prioritize a solution that has conversational AI functionality with a chatbot or AI assistant available to answer tech questions and address issues at all hours of the day.
Or perhaps you’ve noticed that your onboarding process takes far too long, and new hires struggle to ramp up productivity. An AI-powered assistant integrated with your knowledge base could schedule learning modules and track progress, accommodate each learning style, and keep new hires engaged as they start contributing in their roles.
Ultimately, the goal is to match your specific needs with the right KMS capabilities.
Compare AI-driven vs. traditional KMS solutions
Traditional knowledge management systems and AI-driven solutions work very differently, so it’s important to choose the right one for your business environment and needs.
A traditional platform might serve you well enough if you run a small to mid-sized business (SMB) with limited knowledge management needs and fairly static information. But you’ll see more benefits from an AI-powered knowledge management system, especially if:
- You’re a large or growing business with a large collection of knowledge to share across departments.
- You’re in an industry where information changes and evolves rapidly, such as tech.
- You want to improve internal productivity and reduce workloads through automation.
- You have remote or hybrid teams that need to connect and collaborate more efficiently.
Evaluate key features and scalability
When selecting your KMS, prioritize robust search functionality and natural language processing (NLP) to ensure users can quickly and accurately find the information they need. Look for platforms implementing semantic search, which understands the context and intent behind queries, not just the basic keywords, leading to more relevant results.
Additionally, features like automated content updates and metrics/analytics are essential to keep information current and relevant, while providing insights into knowledge usage and gaps. An AI-driven KMS will even auto-generate fresh content that’s relevant to recent employee searches, making it more proactive.
For growing enterprises and remote teams, you’ll also want a system that can scale with you as you continue to grow and expand. Opt for a cloud-based solution with multi-language support to continuously adapt to and accommodate your growing and diverse workforce.
Consider security and data best practices
When evaluating a knowledge management system, prioritize transparency regarding the platform’s security practices to ensure your organization’s sensitive data is well-protected.
Best practices include:
- Compliance with data protection regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA, which help safeguard against lawsuits or fines while fostering customer and employee trust.
- Encryption to keep data safe from unauthorized access (especially important in highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance)
Ensure the system includes access controls and role-based permissions allowing only authorized personnel to access specific internal data and knowledge, helping to maintain confidentiality and security.
The future of knowledge management systems: Agentic automation and beyond
Emerging trends in knowledge management solutions primarily center around AI advancements. Moving forward, we can expect to see more personalized knowledge delivery, automatic content updates, and semantic search capabilities as AI continues to shape the future of workplace automation, employee productivity, and decision-making.
Discover the power of AI agents. Get our white paper on agentic automation.
Automation for content curation and updates
AI can also analyze the user interactions and search patterns happening within your knowledge base to identify common questions, knowledge gaps, and areas where additional content might be needed.
If content needs to be updated or created, the KMS might nudge a human operator — or it might simply do the job itself. An AI-powered KMS can generate personalized knowledge articles by drawing on support tickets and other resources for information.
Moreover, these AI agents can provide analytics on knowledge base usage, helping your organization understand how information is accessed and utilized. Ultimately, this enables more informed decisions, further optimizing the KMS, and ensures the information in the system never grows static or stale.
Personalized and contextual knowledge delivery
Finally, AI-enabled KMS solutions can help adapt to each individual user’s roles, needs, and work habits, surfacing the most relevant information based on context. It also learns patterns of activity (what individual users frequently search for), which helps it recommend content or additional searches.
Additionally, an AI-powered KMS uses integrations with other tools (email, Slack, project management systems, etc.) to gain visibility into what projects an employee is working on. This helps the system provide the most relevant search results possible, further increasing efficiency and satisfaction.
Agentic AI and machine learning enhancements
Agentic AI refers to AI systems that are designed to ‘take action.’ Agentic AI is able to autonomously complete goals and manage workflows with minimal direct human oversight.
A knowledge management system that incorporates agentic AI can:
- Autonomously organize and update the repository based on evolving user interactions and content relevance,
- Automatically enable the system to remain current and useful.
- Proactively identify gaps in the available knowledge and suggest areas for new content creation, thereby enriching the overall resource pool.
- Personalize user experiences by anticipating information needs and delivering tailored content recommendations,
The result? A KM system that is able to be more adaptable, updated, and help to deliver more value across the business.
Moveworks transforms enterprise knowledge management with agentic AI
A well-chosen knowledge management system can be transformative for businesses seeking to overcome challenges related to information silos and inconsistent knowledge access.
By focusing on key features and benefits, such as AI-driven automation and search capabilities, decision-makers can significantly enhance user information access and satisfaction, streamline information retrieval times. and help to reduce the burden on your support agents.
Moveworks’ AI Assistant answers queries in seconds, pulling from your knowledge base to accelerate decision-making and help employees focus on their core tasks.
Moveworks advanced AI features transform the way your enterprise handles knowledge, helping rescue your internal resources from dusty file cabinets and put them to work for your business.
Moveworks Knowledge Studio makes it easy for employees to find the answers they need by:
- Serving as a one stop shop for knowledge base resources — and making it easy for employees to find the specific resource they need with enterprise search capabilities
- Using generative AI to comb through IT tickets and create personalized documentation
- Assessing common employee searches and requests to identify gaps and recommend what knowledge resources to create next
- Helping employees troubleshoot and resolve common issues without requiring support from IT
With Moveworks, you get more than just answers. Our solution helps you turn those answers into action, streamlining workflows and elevating employee productivity .
See how Moveworks can transform your knowledge management strategy — get a demo today.
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