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Knowledge Base

The Knowledge Base is where you teach your AI Agent what to know and how to answer customer questions. Access it through AI > Knowledge Base.
Knowledge Base

Knowledge Base

Every entry — FAQs, self-learned Q&A pairs, and documents — lives in one list. Use the tabs above the list to filter by type: Next to the search bar, a second row of filters — All, Active, Inactive, Needs Review — narrows the list by status, with a live count next to each. Needs Review is where self-learned entries land while they’re waiting for approval. Use Add New to create a FAQ or upload a Document (PDF), or to Connect external source. Select one or more entries to reveal a bulk action bar for activating, deactivating, or deleting them at once. The AI Training button opens a small settings panel with two switches:

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FAQs

FAQs are essentially prompts for the AI Agent. Click Add New > FAQ (or open an existing entry) to get the full-page editor. Each FAQ entry has three fields:
  • Question: The customer query — add multiple variations so the AI can match different phrasings
  • Answer: The response the AI should provide, with an optional file/link attachment
  • Instructions: Special behavioral guidance for this specific FAQ (optional)
The editor also shows the entry’s status (Active/Inactive/Needs Review) with a switch to toggle it, and prev/next arrows to move through the rest of the list without going back to the Knowledge Base page.

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Writing Effective Questions

Add multiple variations of the same question so the AI can identify it regardless of how customers phrase it:
The more variations you add, the more reliably the AI will match incoming questions to the right FAQ entry.

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Writing Effective Answers

Keep answers concise but complete. Use bullet points for multi-step or multi-item responses. Include links where relevant.

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Using Instructions for Controlled Responses

The Instructions field lets you add behavioral rules specific to this FAQ — without affecting the rest of the AI’s behavior. Basic instructions:
Conditional instructions:
Multi-turn / escalation instructions:
FAQs are evaluated as prompts by the AI model. Writing clear, specific instructions produces far better results than vague guidance. If an FAQ isn’t working as expected, try being more explicit in the Instructions field.

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FAQ Best Practices

  • Include multiple question variations — different phrasings, abbreviations, and common misspellings
  • Keep answers factual — the AI will not fabricate information, but vague answers lead to vague responses
  • Use instructions for edge cases — handle follow-up logic, escalations, and conditional behavior here
  • Review regularly — add new FAQs for recurring questions you see in conversations

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Documents

Documents let you upload large bodies of reference content that the AI searches when answering questions. This is ideal for:
  • Product documentation
  • Company policies and procedures
  • Pricing sheets
  • Onboarding guides
  • Technical specifications
1. Q&A Format (Most Effective) Structure content as question-answer pairs. This directly mirrors how the AI processes queries and produces the most reliable results.
2. Paragraph Structure Group related information into focused paragraphs with clear headings:
3. List Structure Use bullet points for step-by-step instructions or feature lists:
The AI searches documents for relevant sections when answering questions. Well-structured documents with clear headings and labeled sections produce better results than unformatted walls of text.

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Self-Learned Context

Self-Learned Context

Self-Learned entries, filtered to Needs Review

The AI Agent automatically learns from real conversations. Every Sunday, Self-Training reviews your team’s resolved chats from the past week, extracts the answers they gave, and drafts new FAQ entries here — you can also trigger a run manually for any week from the Self-Training page. Filter the Knowledge Base list to the Self-Learned tab to see only these entries. This means your knowledge base improves over time without manual effort — every good answer your team gives becomes training data.

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Require Approval

Open the AI Training panel above the list and toggle Require Approval to control what happens to newly self-learned entries: Turning it on is recommended when:
  • You want tight quality control over what the AI learns
  • Your team’s responses may include information not appropriate for all customers
  • You’re in an early stage of AI deployment
Turning it off suits mature deployments where your team consistently gives accurate, appropriate answers. To review pending items, filter the list to Needs Review, open an entry, and use its status switch to approve (activate) or leave it inactive. You can also select multiple entries and use the bulk Activate/Deactivate/Delete actions.

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External Sources (MCP)

Instead of uploading and maintaining documents manually, you can connect the AI Agent directly to a live knowledge source — like Notion, Confluence, or your own product docs — via MCP (Model Context Protocol). The agent reads from the connected source in real time, so there’s nothing to re-upload or keep in sync. Access it through AI > Knowledge Base > External Sources.
External Sources

External Sources

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Connecting a Source

Click Connect source and provide:
  • Name: A label to identify the source (e.g. “Company Docs”)
  • Server URL: The MCP server’s endpoint (e.g. https://docs.company.com/mcp)
  • Authentication: How Periskope authenticates with the server
Connect a knowledge source

Connect a knowledge source

Four authentication types are supported:

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Managing Tools

Once connected, Periskope discovers the tools exposed by the MCP server. Expand a connected source to see all available tools and toggle which ones the AI can use.
External sources are read-only. Tools that can modify data (write tools) are automatically disabled and cannot be enabled — the AI can only read from connected sources, never write to them.
Use Refresh to re-sync the tool list after the server’s capabilities change, or Disconnect to remove the source entirely. If a connection using OAuth expires or is revoked, the source is marked Needs re-auth — click Reconnect to sign in again.

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Knowledge Base Optimization Tips

Quality over quantity. Start with a small set of high-quality FAQs covering your most common questions. A well-written FAQ with good instructions outperforms ten vague ones. Test with real questions. After adding FAQs, test them by sending actual customer questions through the AI and reviewing the responses in Logs. Fill gaps over time. Monitor AI conversations to identify questions the AI is handling poorly or escalating too often. Add or refine FAQs for those topics. Avoid conflicting content. If multiple FAQ entries or documents cover the same topic with different answers, the AI may give inconsistent responses. Keep your knowledge base clean. Review self-learned entries regularly. Self-learned context is valuable but requires curation. Schedule a regular review of pending entries to keep your knowledge base growing accurately. Let the Org Assistant do the audit. Instead of scanning entries manually, open the Org Assistant on this page and ask it to find gaps, flag outdated articles, or spot duplicates — it searches your actual FAQs, documents, and self-learned entries and reports back.

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Next Steps