Fix Your Knowledge Management Before You Add AI

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) is the hot approach to enterprise AI. Feed your documents to an LLM, ask it questions, get answers. Simple, right?

In theory, yes. In practice, the quality of your RAG system is directly proportional to the quality of what you feed it. Garbage in, hallucinations out.

Before you build a RAG system

Get your knowledge house in order:

• Audit what you have. Where does knowledge live? Who maintains it? When was it last updated?
• Kill the zombies. Outdated docs are worse than no docs — they actively mislead.
• Create ownership. Every document should have a person responsible for keeping it current.
• Standardise structure. Consistent formatting makes information easier to find — for humans and AI.

Then, and only then, consider AI-enhanced search and retrieval. You’ll be amazed how much better it works when the foundation is solid.