Thinking critically of GenAI and its knowledge management application

Generative AI (GenAI) seemingly introduces a world of opportunity for businesses in every industry, merging human-like, contextually aware technology with enterprise processes to see a considerable boost in efficacy, productivity, and engagement. In the realm of KM, GenAI poses a unique and tangible remedy for inaccessible, ineffective knowledge practices.

Expert panelists joined KMWorld’s roundtable webinar, Leveraging Generative AI in Knowledge Management, to offer their expertise in cutting-edge applications and benefits of GenAI for capturing, curating, and distributing knowledge successfully.

Keith Berg, SVP/general manager, contact center solutions at Upland Software, began by assessing the business readiness of AI, explaining that “yes, it’s ready for business in many cases, and no for others.”

Berg provided further context, arguing that GenAI is business ready for many support and service use cases. However, he explained that it’s not ready for every challenge; if customers aren’t convinced of these use cases, its application is irrelevant. While many software fads come and go, it appears GenAI is here to stay, regardless of its use case, he posited.

Samantha Middlebrook, senior director, product marketing and management at Upland Software, suggested that ensuring that there is a clear use case and problem to be solved with GenAI aids in its business readiness. Simply implementing GenAI for the sake of implementing it will not produce any positive business outcome.

Reed Strauss, lead solutions engineer at Salesforce, added that keeping a human in-the-loop of any GenAI application will be instrumental for successful utilization.

“AI has a way of speaking very confidently, potentially about topics it is not very accurate about,” said Strauss. “Having that man in-the-loop to help ensure that the messaging that’s going onto customers or to your service teams is accurate, is imperative.”

There are several ways to enact this, according to Strauss; this can manifest as proofreading while the AI is generating or having the AI generate things that can be validated programmatically through code.

Enhancing the ecosystem experience—whether that be customers, employees, or stakeholders—is certainly a point of interest as it relates to the application of GenAI.

“Every touchpoint of a business is going to see a positive impact as a result of generative AI,” said Strauss. “Customers are going to have more seamless experiences—you’ll see this through better AIs integrated in things we use today, like chat, [where] the functionality won’t be as linear and limited as it is today. It’s going to be much more conversational.”

Strauss also pointed to field workers—who may be responsible for installs or inspections—that will benefit from GenAI work and knowledge summarization in natural language, resulting in less context switching. Interacting with, for example, a PDF directly by asking it questions that inform an experience, is certainly a place for innovation, according to Strauss.

Berg suggested that GenAI may be able to provide a more empathetic experience than humans themselves.

“One of the things that sets many of these generative AI models apart is that the output seems really human—confident, thoughtful, and maybe even a little less emotional than an agent trying to get to that next phone call,” he said. “I genuinely believe it's [GenAI] got the opportunity to make us all a little bit better at our jobs.”

Middlebrook echoed Strauss and Berg’s points, adding that “Sometimes, especially in the workplace, it can feel like you’re stuck on the hamster wheel.”

“The use of generative AI can cut through the noise. It can…extract out the things you need to really focus on,” she continued. “Whether it is creating an outline or an email, or for someone on the phone—really removing the emotion of what’s happening and helping them to troubleshoot faster—by giving those people these tools, we can focus on the experience side of business.”

The introduction of GenAI will enable enterprises to focus more on the human-to-human connection that may have been lost in the race to efficiency, according to Middlebrook.

For an extended, in-depth discussion of the application of GenAI in KM, including its financial justification, demonstrating ROI, current limitations, future potential, and more, you can view an archived version of the webinar here.