Build a Business Knowledge Base for an AI Marketing Assistant

Keep two separate documents: approved facts (prices, hours, service areas, policies) and behavior instructions (tone, what to avoid, when to hand off). Give every fact an owner, a source and a last-checked date, record changes in a log, and decide in advance who resolves conflicts. An assistant can only be as accurate as the facts you let it use.

Facts and instructions are different things

When businesses set up an AI assistant, they often write one long prompt that mixes "we open at 8 a.m." with "be friendly and concise." That makes updates risky. Changing a price means editing a document full of tone rules, and nobody can tell which lines are facts that must be exact. For reference, see Anthropic: Building effective agents.

Separate them:

• Approved facts answer "what is true about our business?" They change when the business changes.
• Behavior instructions answer "how should the assistant act?" They change when you learn from conversations.

The fact record

Each fact should be a small record, not a paragraph buried in a page.

The "channel notes" field stops the assistant from turning a general fact into a specific promise.

Behavior instructions

Keep these short and testable:

• Answer only from approved facts; if the answer is not there, say the team will follow up.
• Do not state prices that are not in the fact list.
• Never ask for payment details, health information or account passwords.
• Offer a human handoff whenever the customer asks or seems frustrated.
• Use plain language, no pressure tactics or invented urgency.

The handoff rules should match your handoff matrix.

Change log

Every edit gets a line: date, what changed, who approved it and which channels need updating. A change log sounds bureaucratic, but it answers the question you will eventually ask: "why did the assistant say that last Tuesday?"

Resolving conflicts

Conflicts happen when the website says one thing, a staff member says another and an old social post says a third. Decide in advance:

1. Which source wins by default (usually the fact list, once approved).
2. Who has authority to approve a change for each type of fact (for example, the owner for prices, operations for hours).
3. What the assistant does while a conflict is open (hand off rather than choose).

Our guide to keeping website, social and email answers consistent includes a change-control workflow you can pair with this.

Hypothetical example: a catering company

A fictional caterer finds that its website lists a minimum order for delivery, while a sales rep has been waiving it for repeat clients. The assistant was quoting the minimum to everyone, including those repeat clients, which caused confusion. The fix was not a smarter model. The owner added a fact record stating the published minimum and a channel note: "Exceptions are handled by sales; do not mention waivers." The rep now handles exceptions directly, and the change log records the decision.

Building the first version

• List the twenty questions customers ask most, using real inquiries with personal details removed.
• Write one fact record for each answer, with owner and source.
• Mark any fact that should never be automated, such as custom quotes.
• Write the behavior instructions on a single page.
• Test the assistant with made-up questions, including ones the facts do not cover.
• Schedule a monthly review of facts that change often.

Frequently asked questions

Can the assistant read our whole website instead?

It can, but websites contain old pages, marketing phrasing and exceptions. A curated fact list is easier to control and audit.

How detailed should behavior instructions be?

Detailed enough to test. If you cannot write a test conversation for an instruction, it is probably too vague.

Who should own the knowledge base overall?

One person who can coordinate owners of individual facts. Without a single coordinator, updates tend to stall.

Next step

Start with your twenty most common questions and turn each into a fact record. For help setting up an assistant around approved facts, see our AI agent development service or contact us.

Sources and further reading

• Anthropic: Building effective agents, on giving systems clear, well-documented tools and instructions.

Editorial note: this planning guide was drafted with AI assistance for Rithm Digital and created on September 25, 2026. Examples are hypothetical. It is general marketing-operations guidance, not legal, medical, tax or financial advice. Prices refer only to Rithm's published Small Business Launch & Growth offer.