What's Next in Knowledge Management?

Many industries are now being changed or disrupted by AI technology, knowledge management included. This can be seen in both how we manage our own knowledge as well as how we manage the knowledge of others. AI tools can now help us identify gaps in our understanding and fill them with new, insightful information. In this article, we'll discuss how knowledge management can harness AI capabilities to streamline workflows and manual processes.

What is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge management is the process by which an organization gathers, organizes, and shares information in order to make better decisions and further organizational learning. Knowledge management is a critical component of any company’s success. AI plays a crucial role in this process by providing the tools for managing knowledge more efficiently.

AI in knowledge management can do the following:

• Help with tasks like data mining, research, and analysis which makes information more accessible to all employees in an organization.

• Automates the knowledge storing, retrieval, and sharing processes that would otherwise be too complex or time-consuming for humans to complete alone.

• Recognizes patterns and identifies trends for easy information retrieval.

• Analyzes data and extract insights from it. It can also be used for predictive analytics, which helps forecast future trends.

What's the difference between Knowledge Work and Knowledge Management? 

Knowledge management refers to information management including creating and maintaining knowledge documentation such as how-to guides, templates, proformas, precedents, and other like documents. Effective knowledge management goes beyond organizing information to tag and categorize documents effectively to create standardized and repeatable processes. [Imanage.com]

Knowledge workers apply context and best practices to interpreting data while considering the organization's collective knowledge/experience and the industry's impact, trends, and context. [Imanage.com] Types of knowledge workers include researchers, architects, engineers, lawyers, financial advisors, and editors. However, even if you are not in this type of role, you may still be highly engaged in knowledge work and benefit from effective knowledge management practices. 

Why is Knowledge Management Important?

Knowledge management gives structure to unstructured information and helps people share and categorize their "knowledge". The knowledge can be anything from the best way to do a certain task to how to troubleshoot system errors.

Organizations need knowledge management to help their employees keep up with fast-paced market changes, and knowledge management professionals need AI tools to create a seamless, efficient workflow. AI tools can benefit all industries and are going to become a vital part of knowledge management in the next few years.

How Do AI Tools Work and What Can They Do For Knowledge Workers?

Natural Language Processing, or NLP, gives computers the ability to understand text and spoken words in a similar way that human beings can. As noted by IBM, NLP combines computational linguistics (the rule-based modeling of human language) with statistical, machine learning, and deep learning models. Together, these technologies enable computers to process human language in the form of text or voice data and to "understand" its full meaning, complete with the speaker or writer’s intent and sentiment [IBM].

NLP aids knowledge management in its ability to quickly extract important information from hundreds of documents and sites. NLP also makes it possible to easily tag and categorize these documents, which can then be stored in a database for future use. Taking the manual process out of knowledge management allows knowledge workers to focus on other areas of work and gives them time back in their busy days.

How to Reduce Information Overload

In the age of information overload, professionals only want to see what is most relevant to them. Using AI tools that can personalize information according to your specific interests and workflow is vital to reducing information overload. With personalization:

• You only see the information that is relevant to you or your team.

• Complex bits of information is structured and translated into easily understandable nuggets.

• Provides only the most relevant results.

• Filters information to reduce information overload.

Personalization in knowledge management ensures you don't suffer from information overload, meaning you won't spend hours and hours browsing through irrelevant content. Tools like ModuleQ are highly personalized and harness Personal Data Fusion® to deliver highly relevant, personalized insights to knowledge workers. 

Beyond Search: Proactive Insights

One of the most exciting future prospects of using AI in knowledge management is the intuitiveness and accuracy with which information is delivered to a user. A lot of AI tools will still need fine-tuning and human review to ensure the information is contextual, accurate, and error-free. ModuleQ’s People-Facing AI is already there. ModuleQ continuously learns from user inputs and deploys complex algorithms to ingest information in a personalized and contextual way building a robust, reliable knowledge base. Key capabilities of ModuleQ include:

• Patented People-Facing AI® technology can adapt to the needs of each individual user and produce the right information at just the right time.

• Takes information in its rawest form to understand its variables, tags, and categories and then translates it according to the specific needs of the user.

• Learns your workflow and functions to present information right when you need it — even before you ask for it so you don't have to spend time searching.

• Makes it easy to share insights and information with others. Insights are delivered right in Teams and are easily shareable so you can collaborate easier.

• Learns your priorities and workflow so you see just the relevant info at just the right time, reducing digital fatigue.

ModuleQ's AI solution is available to knowledge professionals today. We offer robust knowledge management capabilities baked right into the platform. To find out more about how it works and how you can utilize it, head here.