Examining the evolving role of KM and AI with eGain
Knowledge management is becoming inseparable from AI when it comes to the customer experience (CX). AI-powered KM enables faster, more accurate responses to customer inquiries through intelligent search and automated recommendations.
By connecting disparate information sources, KM and AI create seamless experiences where customers receive consistent, up-to-date answers across all touchpoints.
KMWorld recently held a webinar, Revolutionizing CX: The Evolving Role of KM & AI, with John Copeland, VP of marketing at eGain, who discussed why structured, governed knowledge is the foundation that makes AI agents and automation actually work.
AI investment is surging but deployments are underperforming, Copeland explained. The models aren’t the problem; it’s the knowledge underneath.
Content chaos is the silent killer of AI ROI. Without a single source of governed truth, AI agents produce inconsistent, hallucinated, or unhelpful answers—regardless of model quality, Copeland said.
Structured, governed knowledge is the foundational layer that makes AI work—not the model, not the platform.
He introduced the concept of KnowledgeOps, which is a proven methodology for turning content chaos into AI-ready knowledge at enterprise scale.
The four disciplines of KnowledgeOps consist of:
- Ingest and federate: Connect every knowledge source—CRM, SharePoint, Confluence, PDFs, legacy systems—via certified connectors and open APIs. No rip-and-replace required.
- Structure for AI: Apply tagging, metadata, guided help flows, and structured authoring to transform raw content into machine-readable, contextually accurate knowledge.
- Keep it trusted: Lifecycle management, compliance controls, versioning, and role-based publishing ensure knowledge stays accurate as policies change and regulations evolve.
- Deliver everywhere: Surface the right knowledge at the right moment—agent desktop, self-service portal, conversational AI, or agentic workflow. One source, multichannel delivery.
KnowledgeOps is strategic, not operational. KM practitioners own the work that determines whether AI investments pay off. That's a C-suite conversation, not an IT ticket, he said.
You have the domain expertise no one else does. You understand content structure, governance, lifecycle, and how knowledge flows in your organization. AI vendors don't.
The AI wave has made your work visible. The question is no longer whether KM matters, it's whether your organization connects the dots before AI projects fail publicly, Copeland concluded.
For the full webinar, featuring a more in-depth discussion, Q&A, and more, you can view an archived version of the webinar here.