Agent knowledge and question pairs

An agent is not a black box. Every answer comes from the sources ticked on it plus your instructions. If a question is not covered by one of them, the agent hands the review to a person instead of guessing.

A Q&A pair is the smallest of those sources: one question a customer asks, and the answer you allow. Pairs are written in sets, and a set lives in the Knowledge bank alongside your documents and websites, so the same set can answer for every agent you own.

What you need: half an hour, and a list of what your team already answers every day.

Write a set of pairs

Open AI Agents and go to the Knowledge bank tab.
Press Add a source and choose Q&A pairs.
Under Source name, give the set the name you would give a folder. "Support Q&A" or "Shipping questions". It is shown beside every answer that used it.
Under What people ask, write the question the way a customer types it, typos and all if that is what you see. "how long does shipping take?" is closer to real traffic than "Shipping information".
Under What the agent may say, write facts only. The agent rewrites this in its own tone and in the reviewer's language, so you are supplying the truth, not the phrasing.
Press Add a pair for the next one, and drag a row to move it. The two names are on the first row only; every row below it is the same 2 fields. The agent reads all of them, so the order is for you.
Press the Add button at the bottom right.

Screenshot to come

The Q&A pairs tab of the add a source dialog, with a set name and six question and answer rows.

Suggested image Screenshot of the Add a source modal with the fourth tile, Q&A pairs, selected: the Source name field reading Support Q&A above it, the first row carrying the What people ask and What the agent may say labels, six rows each with a question field and an answer field, a drag handle and a remove button, the Add a pair button under the last row, and the Add 6 pairs button at the bottom right of the footer.

Start with the 6 questions your team answers most. That covers the bulk of reviews before you write anything else.

Point an agent at the set

Adding a set to the bank does not point any agent at it. Open an agent, go to the Knowledge tab, and tick the set under Sources this agent uses. The summary line underneath counts what that agent now reads: sources, pairs and pages.

Screenshot to come

The Knowledge tab of an agent, with a Q&A pairs set ticked in the source checklist.

Suggested image Screenshot of the agent editor on the Knowledge tab under Sources this agent uses: a checklist where a row badged Q&A pairs and reading 6 pairs is ticked, one row locked with the hint about the agent's own starter pairs, and the summary line underneath reading 2 sources, 6 pairs, 40 pages.

The same set can be ticked on as many agents as you like. There is 1 copy of it, so an edit reaches all of them at once.

If an agent already had pairs of its own, they are now a set named after it, ticked on that agent and locked there. Delete the agent and the set stays in the bank, for you to keep, re-use or remove on its own card.

Save a pair from a reply you already sent

Every reply in the reviews feed carries an Add to AI knowledge button.

Find a reply in the reviews feed that answered a question well.
Press Add to AI knowledge on it.
The dialog opens with the original review as the question and your reply as the answer. Tidy both, then save.
The button changes to "Already in the AI knowledge base" so you do not add the same thing twice.

The pair goes into a set called Saved from replies in the Knowledge bank, created the first time you use the button, and the agent that answered starts reading it.

Edit and remove

Press Edit pairs on the set's card in the bank. Change a question, rewrite an answer, drag a row, or remove one, then save the set. The change reaches every agent reading it from the next review onwards, and nothing already sent is altered.

Delete a pair the moment the fact behind it changes. A stale price is worse than no answer at all, because the agent will state it confidently.

Writing answers that hold up

1 fact per pair. A pair that answers shipping, returns and stock at once produces a reply that answers none of them well.
No promises you cannot keep. "Usually 2 to 4 working days" survives a bad week. "Always within 48 hours" does not.
Nothing about a specific person's order. The agent has no access to your order system and should never sound as though it does. Put order numbers on the skip-keyword list on the Behavior tab.
Cover the awkward question. If a competitor comparison or a price objection keeps arriving, write the answer you want given, or the agent hands it to a person every time.

Limits and what it costs

A set holds up to 200 pairs. It counts as 1 document and 1 page of your plan's bank limits, however many pairs are in it, which is why a set is the unit rather than a pair.

Writing, editing and deleting pairs is free, however many you add. Only the replies the agent writes for real reviews cost anything, and the exact number of credits shows on the tab before you add a thing.

Watching it work

The Playground tab tells you which pair answered a review: it names the match, and when nothing covered it, says so. That is the quickest way to find the gaps.