AI customer service software is revolutionizing the way businesses handle support—but here’s the hard truth: your AI is only as good as the knowledge behind it.

If your AI agent is struggling to provide accurate responses, getting stuck in loops, or escalating too many tickets, the problem probably isn’t the AI itself—it’s likely your knowledge base .

That’s exactly what we tackled in our recent webinar with Karen Knighton, Knowledge Manager at Beehiiv and Dewi Smith, Senior Manager of Customer Experience Enablement at OpenPhone: the four biggest knowledge base challenges that prevent AI from reaching its full potential—and how to fix them.

If you missed it, don’t worry. This article is your roadmap to optimizing your knowledge base for AI-driven resolutions, lower escalations, and better customer experiences.

But with Karen’s experience in content and knowledge management and Dewi’s expertise in reimagining customer support with AI, this conversation is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. If you’re serious about making AI work for your customer service, you’ll want to catch the full discussion .

outdated content is killing your AI’s accuracy

One of the biggest mistakes companies make with AI customer service software is assuming their knowledge base is “good enough.” But if your AI is pulling from outdated or misleading content, it will fail—every time.

Because AI doesn’t create knowledge—it retrieves it. If your knowledge base is outdated, your AI is giving customers bad information. Think about it: If a human agent relied on a three-year-old training manual, they’d give customers incorrect answers. AI is no different.

Here’s how you can improve:

• Audit your knowledge base regularly: Schedule quarterly content reviews to check for outdated information, broken links, and incorrect details.
• Archive obsolete information: Old refund policies, discontinued product guides, or outdated troubleshooting steps? They should be removed or updated immediately to prevent AI from serving misinformation.
• Prioritize high-traffic content: Your top 10% most-viewed articles drive the majority of AI interactions. Focus your updates on these first.
• Plan for seasonal updates: If your AI is still referencing last year’s holiday promotions or an expired refund policy, customers will be frustrated before they even reach a live agent.

poor formatting confuses AI—and your customers

Let’s say your knowledge base has the right information, but customers (and AI) still can’t find answers easily. That’s a formatting issue—and it’s a silent killer of AI efficiency.

AI reads and retrieves structured content far better than free-flowing, unformatted text. If your knowledge base articles don’t follow a clear hierarchy, AI can end up grabbing partial answers, irrelevant details, or—worse—hallucinating incorrect information.

Here’s how you can improve:

• Use structured formatting – AI retrieves information more effectively when articles have clear H1 and H2 headers, bullet points, and bolded key terms.
• Make each article laser-focused: Instead of cramming multiple topics into one page, stick to one question per article (e.g., “How to update your billing info” instead of “All things billing”).
• Write for AI, not just humans: While a human agent might skim through a dense FAQ, AI prefers modular, scannable content with clear action steps.
• Tag and categorize content correctly: AI can retrieve tagged articles faster, reducing retrieval errors.
• Keep related content together: AI doesn’t “scroll.” If the answer is buried in an unrelated section, customers won’t get the right response.

knowledge gaps are leaving AI speechless

Ever asked a question and received a vague or completely unrelated answer? It’s frustrating, right? Now imagine your customers experiencing that with your AI agent. When AI doesn’t have the right content to pull from, it won’t just make something up (at least, not something useful). Instead, it will either provide a generic non-answer or escalate the ticket—defeating the purpose of automation.

And that’s where knowledge gaps come in.

AI can only resolve what it knows—and if your knowledge base is missing key information, customers are left without answers, human agents get overloaded, and your AI investment fails to deliver ROI.

Here’s how you can improve:

• Analyze unresolved inquiries: Look at AI conversations where customers didn’t get a satisfactory answer. What topics keep coming up?
• Prioritize FAQs that drive ticket volume: If hundreds of customers are asking about the same issue, that should be your next content update.
• Expand AI’s access to multiple knowledge sources: AI can’t answer what it can’t see. If critical information is hidden in PDFs, wikis, or emails, integrate these sources into your AI’s knowledge base.

your AI needs coaching—just like a human agent

There’s a myth that AI runs on autopilot, continuously improving itself without intervention. But here’s the truth: AI is not a “set it and forget it” solution.

Just like a human customer service agent, AI needs training, coaching, and feedback loops to refine its responses, personalize interactions, and avoid common mistakes. Without continuous optimization, even the best AI-powered customer service software will plateau, delivering the same mistakes over and over again.

Here’s how you can improve:

• Use AI feedback loops: Customers should be able to thumbs-up or thumbs-down AI responses so you can fine-tune answers.
• Regularly review AI transcripts: Just like you’d analyze customer service calls, spot-check AI interactions to identify weak points.
• Refine tone and personalization: AI should match your brand’s voice and adapt responses for different customer segments.

final takeaway: your AI is only as good as your knowledge base

AI customer service software has the power to transform support operations—but only if it has the right knowledge to pull from. If your AI agent is delivering inconsistent, incomplete, or outdated responses, it’s not a failure of the technology—it’s a content problem.

A well-structured, up-to-date, and properly formatted knowledge base isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s the backbone of AI success. Without it, even the most advanced AI models will struggle to provide meaningful customer resolutions.

That’s why the businesses that are winning with AI aren’t just deploying automation—they’re investing in knowledge management as a core strategy.

what’s your next step?

• Want to optimize your AI knowledge base? Let’s chat .
• Need more insights? Download our guide to knowledge management for AI customer service.
• Missed the webinar? Watch the full session on-demand .