How to give an AI assistant the right business information

The quickest way to lose trust in an AI assistant is to watch it confidently say something that is not true about your business: an old price, a service you stopped offering, opening hours from last year. In almost every case the AI is not being careless. It simply was not given the right information, or it was left to guess.

Start with the questions people actually ask

Before writing anything, look at the last few weeks of emails, messages and call notes. List the questions that keep coming up. For most businesses, the same handful of topics cover the bulk of everyday questions: what you offer, who it is for, rough pricing or how pricing works, availability and turnaround, location and hours, and what happens next.

Write the answer to each one the way your best team member would say it. Keep it short, specific and current.

Separate facts from judgment calls

Some answers are facts: your address, your hours, the services you provide. Others need judgment: a custom quote, a refund outside the usual policy, a complaint. Be explicit about which is which. An AI teammate should answer the facts and hand the judgment calls to a person.

• Facts the AI can share: services, general pricing approach, hours, locations, booking steps, policies as written.
• Things it should collect and pass on: details of a custom request, contact information, the reason for the inquiry.
• Things that always go to a person: exceptions, complaints, legal or medical questions, anything you would not want answered without review.

Make sure someone approves it

Business information should not change quietly. Decide who in your team approves what the AI is allowed to say, and make it easy to see what is live. A good rule is that a draft stays a draft until someone with authority publishes it.

In SpeakAI this is how Business Knowledge works. You can draft and edit freely, and only published information is used by your AI team. Editing a published item returns it to draft until it is approved again, so a half-finished change never reaches a customer.

Keep it current

Put a recurring reminder in the calendar, monthly for most businesses, to review the information your AI team uses. Update prices when they change, remove offers that have ended, and add answers to new questions that came up. Ten minutes a month keeps your AI teammates as accurate as your best employee.

A short checklist

• List the ten questions you answer most often.
• Write a clear, current answer for each.
• Mark which topics always need a person.
• Choose who approves changes.
• Review everything once a month.