AI and Knowledge Management: Elevating Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly propelling us into the Second Technological Revolution, with tools like ChatGPT helping to streamline daily tasks. Generative AI solutions like these have a lot of potential — particularly for financial institutions (FIs), which stand to gain between $200 billion to $340 billion annually from the technology if correctly implemented, according to McKinsey. 

But how can FIs make the most of AI?

When people think of AI in customer service, they often think of conversational AI chatbots designed to act as virtual assistants to customers. While these solutions are great for customer service, they aren’t always able to handle every interaction. At the same time, the generative AI that powers them is relatively new, so many FIs prefer to test it out internally first. That’s where AI knowledge management software comes in.

Traditional Knowledge Management for Financial Institutions

Knowledge management is an enormous operation for FIs, involving the capture, distribution and effective utilization of information spread across the organization. This is essential for ensuring employees have access to the same, relevant knowledge, thus improving operational efficiency and customer service.

However, FIs are still using outdated methods for managing electronic data. Their current knowledge management systems (KMSs) struggle with data silos, outdated information and inefficient search capabilities. Meanwhile, questions don’t always receive the same answer, especially when employees are left to find the answer they deem most appropriate. These limitations can impede decision making and reduce productivity.

Today, new AI knowledge management tools are transforming these traditional approaches, allowing agents to access relevant information and answer questions more easily. By reducing search and hold times, these solutions elevate the customer experience and make life easier for FI frontline workers, loan officers and HR employees.

How Generative AI Is Transforming Knowledge Management

AI technology and machine learning are revolutionizing FI operations by unlocking the true potential of their knowledge management systems. Posh's Knowledge Assistant leverages generative AI to ingest all of a FIs knowledge into an easily searchable interface and is then able to answer questions with sources linked and highlighted.

Here’s how these AI knowledge assistants work in a nutshell:

Step 1. Ingesting Organizational Information

An AI knowledge assistant excels at ingesting vast amounts of organizational knowledge from various sources, such as website information, internal documents and databases. Simply upload your data and the AI assistant ingests it, making it easily searchable. This process eliminates the inefficiencies of a traditional digital knowledge base, providing employees with instant access to accurate information based on real sources within the organization.

Step 2. Assisting Agents in Answering Questions

While an AI knowledge assistant has a wide range of applications for FIs, its use in supporting customer service agents highlights some of its key strengths. Through natural language processing and a conversational AI interface, the AI system is able to understand the context of questions and retrieve the most relevant information to answer them. This capability not only improves the accuracy of responses but also reduces the time agents spend searching for answers by 93%.

Step 3. Tracking Customer Inquiries and User Activity

An AI knowledge assistant will also track customer inquiries and user data to facilitate its continuous improvement. These solutions monitor interactions to capture and analyze data on frequently asked questions and user behavior. With actionable insight into top documents, feedback and audit logs, FIs can identify any potential knowledge gaps, drive informed decision-making and improve overall service quality.

By adding these advanced AI capabilities, your FI can significantly increase operational efficiency, enhance the customer experience and maintain a competitive edge in the industry. But the use cases don’t stop at customer support.

Other Applications for AI in Knowledge Management

Implementing AI knowledge assistants can also have huge benefits for other areas of the organization. Beyond just customer service agents, these solutions can also help teams in:

Lending and Loan Processing

An internal AI knowledge assistant can streamline loan processing workflows by quickly retrieving and verifying necessary documents and information. With these precise, data-driven insights, loan officers can make more accurate lending decisions faster, enhancing overall efficiency in the loan approval process.

HR and Learning and Development Teams

AI-powered knowledge assistants provide centralized access to crucial information for HR and Learning and Development teams, enabling quick retrieval of policies, procedures and employee records. They can also assist in onboarding new employees, allowing HR professionals to quickly answer their questions throughout the process.

The AI Advantage

We’ve touched on a few of the benefits AI knowledge assistants have to offer so far, but not directly. To help illustrate why 86% of FI leaders believe AI is critical, let’s take a look at some of the explicit advantages these solutions provide to both customers and employees.

Customer Benefits:

• Faster access to information: Customers don’t have to worry about long waits or getting put on hold. Instead, agents can give them immediate, accurate responses to their questions.
• Enhanced personalization: AI efficiencies allow agents to spend more time with customers, providing personalized, one-on-one assistance, rather than hopping from call to call in as short a time as possible.
• Proactive issue resolution: Predictive analytics can anticipate potential next questions customers may have based on past activity, allowing agents to proactively answer questions and offer solutions before problems occur.

Employee Benefits:

• Easy to use compared to old search methods: AI tools have become ubiquitous and highly intuitive, with 97% of FI respondents in one survey being familiar with AI technology in some capacity.
• Increased efficiency and productivity: By automating routine tasks, such as search and discovery, these tools save time for more strategic operations, boosting employee productivity.
• Consistent, accurate information: With access to the same, accurate information and data-driven insights, employees at all levels are able to make more informed decisions.
• Minimal knowledge loss: These tools also ensure that organizational knowledge is continuously updated and easily accessible, eliminating the risk of lost data, silos, and key person risk.
• Improve employee satisfaction: Thanks to all of these benefits, from simplifying tasks to providing easy access to information, AI can elevate job satisfaction and reduce employee stress.

4 Key Features To Look For in an AI Knowledge Assistant

Not every AI knowledge tool is built the same. Before you get too excited about a shiny new solution, it’s important to consider a few essential features that ensure you get the best performance and value.

Here are four key features to look for in your AI knowledge base:

1. Intelligent Search and Retrieval

Your AI-powered knowledge assistant must be able to understand the context and intent behind user queries while delivering precise and relevant results. Ideally, these answers should also cite their sources from the organizational knowledge base to minimize the risk of misinformation. 

Moreover, it should be easy and intuitive for employees to search for the information they need. The AI should be able to handle navigating through extensive information to provide quick and accurate answers.

2. Data Tracking and Analytics

To continuously improve your knowledge base and stay competitive, your team needs in-depth visibility into user behavior, search trends and content utilization. These actionable insights enable informed decision-making, helping organizations continuously improve their knowledge management strategies and enhance overall service quality. By monitoring interactions and capturing data on frequently asked questions, your AI solution can help you identify knowledge gaps, proactively address issues and stay ahead of emerging trends.

3. Enhanced Security and Departmental Access Controls

AI tools have a lot of potential, but they can also expose your organization to increased risk if you aren’t careful. Your chosen solution provider should incorporate enhanced security, access and controls to safeguard sensitive information.

With user authentication, data encryption, and adaptive access controls, you can ensure that only authorized personnel or departments can access specific data. Moreover, your provider should implement stringent security measures, comply with the latest regulatory requirements and demonstrate key certifications, like SOC 2 Type II. This level of security is critical for FIs, which handle vast amounts of confidential information. 

4. Real-Time Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration

While not every person in your organization can have the same access levels to information, it’s essential that all organizational knowledge remains consistent — no matter who’s viewing it. Your AI knowledge base should act as a central repository of information, facilitating real-time sharing and collaboration while breaking down data silos. 

With data integrated from multiple sources and instant information updates, your system can provide team members access to the latest information. This capability enhances communication and coordination across departments, allowing employees to work together more effectively and the organization to respond quickly to changes.

Posh: Discover the Next Step in AI Knowledge Management Tools

Looking for the perfect solution to transform your organization’s knowledge management? Posh has you covered with our AI-powered Knowledge Assistant. 

With intelligent search, Knowledge Assistant searches for answers based on the question’s meaning, not just keywords. This allows agents to answer questions in a straightforward, personalized manner, complete with citations to sources — all in a matter of seconds.

Request a demo to discover how Knowledge Assistant can drive your organization forward.