Connecting knowledge sources to power generative replies in AI agents

Knowledge sources are the information your AI agent uses to create AI-generated answers to questions from your customers. Adding knowledge sources to your AI agent lets it generate answers to help customers without requiring you to script every response.


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This article doesn't apply to customers who
bought AI agents - Advanced before March 10, 2026. Instead, see this article.

Knowledge sources are the information your AI agent uses to create AI-generated answers
to questions from your customers. Adding knowledge sources to your AI agent lets it
generate answers to help customers without requiring you to script every response.
This article contains the following topics:

About knowledge sources
Connecting a Zendesk help center to an AI agent
Connecting an external knowledge source to an AI agent
Disconnecting a knowledge source
Viewing all connected knowledge sources

Related article:

Configuring search rules for knowledge sources
for AI agents



About knowledge sources

You can connect the following types of knowledge sources to an AI agent:


Zendesk help centers: The help center associated with your Zendesk
account (or a specific brand, if you’ve set up multiple brands).

External knowledge sources: Content from external sources, which is
brought into your Zendesk account through a web crawler or a knowledge connector.

You can connect multiple knowledge sources to a single AI agent. For example, you can
connect multiple Zendesk help centers, multiple external sources, or a combination
of both. Nevertheless, we recommend keeping the overall number of knowledge sources
within a reasonable limit. Having too many sources can in some cases lead to reduced
accuracy and increased latency.
Connecting one or more knowledge sources is required in order for an AI agent to
create an AI-generated answer. If you add a Generative replies block in a dialogue, or instruct a generative procedure to produce a knowledge reply, and
you have no connected knowledge sources, a technical error will occur.
When an AI agent searches a connected help center, it searches the current content of
the help center at the time the search is performed. However, when an AI agent
searches a connected external knowledge source, it searches the information that was
available as of the last sync, which usually happens every 24 hours.
If you’re using restricted help center content, AI agent responses respect the
article view permissions, which means:

If the customer is authenticated, the AI agent can use relevant restricted
articles to generate its response.
If the customer is unauthenticated, the AI agent can use only public articles to
generate its response.

For more information, see Using restricted help center content in AI agent
responses.



Connecting a Zendesk help center to an AI agent

You can connect a Zendesk help center associated with any of your brands to an AI
agent. The AI agent can then use the help center content to generate answers to
customer questions.
Your help center must be activated before you can connect it to an
AI agent.


Note: Currently, you cannot connect a help center from your
production account in your sandbox account.

To connect a Zendesk help center


In the AI agents workspace, select the AI agent you want to work
with.
Click
Content in the sidebar, then select Knowledge sources.
Click Edit sources. A Knowledge sources dialog appears.

In the field at the top, select Help center.
In the list, select the Zendesk help center you want to connect to the AI
agent.


Tip: If you don’t see your help
center, make sure you’ve activated it.


Click Save. Your help center appears in the Knowledge sources
list.







Connecting an external knowledge source to an AI agent

You can also connect an external knowledge source to an AI agent so the AI agent can
use the information from that source when generating answers to customer questions.
To connect an external knowledge source


If you haven’t already, connect an external knowledge
source to your Zendesk account.
In the AI agents workspace, select the AI agent you want to work
with.
Click
Content in the sidebar, then select Knowledge sources.
Click Edit sources. A Knowledge sources dialog appears.

In the field at the top, select External content.
In the list, expand the type of external knowledge source if necessary, then
select the source you want to connect to the AI agent.

Click Save. Your external knowledge source appears in the Knowledge
sources list.







Disconnecting a knowledge source

You can disconnect a knowledge source from an AI agent to prevent the AI agent from
using the information in that source when generating answers to customer questions.
To disconnect a knowledge source


In the AI agents workspace, select the AI agent you want to work
with.
Click
Content in the sidebar, then select Knowledge sources.
Click Edit sources. A Knowledge sources dialog appears.

In the field at the top, select either Help center or External
content. In the list, deselect the knowledge source you want to
disconnect.

Click Save. The disconnected knowledge source is removed from the
Knowledge sources list.






Viewing all connected knowledge sources

In your AI agent’s settings, you can view all the content sources currently connected
to it. The AI agent will use these sources to generate answers to customer
questions.
To view all connected content sources


In the AI agents workspace, select the AI agent you want to work
with.

Click
Content in the sidebar, then select Knowledge sources. This page shows you a list of all knowledge sources currently
connected to the AI agent.






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