Evolution of Knowledge Management 

The fast-paced evolution of our globally interconnected economy necessitates the development of knowledge capabilities as a corporate imperative. The forebears of knowledge management devised helpful tools and methods. What they discovered is currently being used in various new business areas. 

According to the original principle of knowledge management, if knowledge is an organization's most important resource, it should be exploited and made more productive. This is still true today. However, the buzz around Knowledge management has exploded in recent years, as have its applications.

Businesses rely on a dependable knowledge management system for efficient information sharing and internal processes.

What is knowledge management?

Knowledge management is the process of gathering, storing, organizing, and disseminating information within a company. Knowledge is stored in your company's files, documents, guidelines, databases, reports, and in your employees' heads.

Leaders must allow knowledge to flow dynamically and effortlessly across all activities and departments inside the organization in a quickly shifting business landscape where taking full use of information is critical to staying competitive. The volume of unstructured data generated every day and locked away in siloed applications is the most significant difficulty in knowledge management. Emerging AI technologies will play an important role, such as natural language processing and natural language production.

These systems can categorize and organize data across several platforms, removing significant hurdles to leveraging knowledge developed within companies.

1 - Applications of AI in Knowledge Management

Unstructured content makes up more than 80% of enterprise information. Unlike structured data formats, analyzing and extracting valuable information from unstructured data such as memos, emails, text documents, films, and other forms of unstructured data. And this information is quite beneficial in the corporate world.

Knowledge mining is a new AI-driven idea that entails combining several intelligent services to quickly study data, uncover hidden insights, and discover linkages at scale. Knowledge workers will be able to access unstructured data more efficiently and make better business judgments due to this.      

2 - Chatbots powered by Knowledge Management – Knowledge bots

A knowledge bot can be built to deliver information on any topic that knowledge workers are interested in. A knowledgebot, for example, can respond to inquiries such as "Who is the senior manager for Knowmax?" "How do I upgrade my operating system?" or "What is Robin's email address?" Employees can also utilize the bot to retrieve documents from the knowledge management system, such as "Get me the sales report for 2017" or "Send me the status report for project A," etc. 

Employees can use a chatbot or a voice bot to have natural language discussions and access information via text or speech.

These bots will work as personal assistants on your intranet and in messaging apps like Teams, Skype For Business, and Skype.

3 - Quick access to personalized information with the help of a Semantic search

Cognitive enterprise search is a critical component of current information management systems and is essential forproviding individualized search experiences.

For example, a simple search on the firm's "Rebranding Directors" should not only return information on therelevant people in the company, but it should also tailor the results depending on the user's profile, such as location, geography, interests, work role, etc. Furthermore, the search should consider the language requirements of personnel all around the world.

4 - Omnichannel approach

All intranet packages will need flexibleand diversified capabilities that allow for easy cooperation. Everything elseis secondary to modern employees' preference for convenience and accessibility.

As a result, increased compatibility of intranet and knowledge base management technologies with a mobile interface are anticipated to emerge as an important knowledge management trend.

The goal is to provide employees with all the necessary tools at their fingertips, regardless of where they work.

Employees must juggle between applications,programs, and tools outside of the knowledge management system for various tasks such as project management, communication, and content creation, among others. 

The workplace apps and the knowledge management system can be brought together under one integrated digital workplace suite using intranet software. Getting into multiple programs and switching between them will be less of a challenge for an employee. 

5 - Cloud-based technologies

The software as a service (SaaS) paradigm is gaining traction in the digital workplace. Intranets with knowledge management systems are increasingly being sold as an Intranet-as-a-Service model. 

This is an appealing alternative for businesses that want flexibility and a cloud-based monthly subscription plan over a hefty upfront expenditure. This trend is also fuelled by an increased need to access information from any location.

Conclusion 

Employees will be able to access the knowledge management system more quickly and effectively if the user interface (UI) is well-designed. The staff's ability to adapt to the system is directly influenced by what they see on the screen. As a result, the backbone of an effective knowledge management system must be an appealing, compact, and adaptable interface. 

In an ever-changing business world, knowledge is power, and when effectively tapped, it allows businesses to stay relevant and innovate. A modern knowledge management system makes use of artificial intelligence (AI) to acquire, organize, and distribute business data efficiently.

Lastly, as you prepare to capitalize on these new trends, you might be tempted to overdo and choose the tools, not in line with your organization's processes. Hence, it is more important to monitor these efforts in a timely fashion.

Author Bio

Sowmya Juttukonda is a digital media specialist at Knowmax. Knowmax is an AI-backed knowledge base for support agents that helps enterprises reduce support costs and solve productivity challenges.