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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The functionality described in this article is being rolled
out to all Suite and Support plans from May 11 through June 12, 2026. You may not
see this functionality in your account yet. See this announcement for details.

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
Importing a knowledge source (Legacy)
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.
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



Note: This section applies only if your Zendesk account was
created on or after March 10, 2026. Otherwise, see Importing a knowledge source (Legacy).

You can connect a Zendesk help center to an AI agent so the AI agent can 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.
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



Note: This section applies only if your Zendesk account was
created on or after March 10, 2026. Otherwise, see Importing a knowledge source (Legacy).

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



Note: This section applies only if your Zendesk account was
created on or after March 10, 2026. Otherwise, see Deleting 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.






Importing a knowledge source (Legacy)



Note: This section applies only if your Zendesk account was
created before March 10, 2026. Otherwise, see Connecting a Zendesk help center to an AI agent or Connecting an external knowledge source to an AI agent.

Client admins can import the following types of knowledge sources for an AI
agent:

Zendesk help center
Salesforce help center
Freshdesk help center
Confluence site or
space
CSV file
Web-crawled content



Importing a Zendesk help center (Legacy)

Client admins can import a Zendesk help center.
To import 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 Add source. The Add source pane opens.

In Type, select Zendesk.
In Help center URL, enter your subdomain, including the help center
locale (for example,
https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com/hc/en-us). If you don't
provide a locale, the help center's default locale is uploaded.

In Source name, enter a name for your source. This name is used in
reporting within the AI agents reporting dashboard.

In Import frequency, select how often the help center content should
be reimported:

Daily: Content is reimported every day excluding Sundays and
the 15th of the month. Not recommended unless your knowledge source
is updated very frequently.

Weekly: Content is reimported each week on Sunday.

Monthly: Content is reimported on the 15th of each
month.

Never: Content is imported once and is never reimported.
The exact timing of a reimport isn't guaranteed. The reimport
is processed during the day it's scheduled for, but might not
always be ready at a consistent time.
Regular reimporting
keeps the AI agent up to date. For most organizations, a weekly
or monthly cadence is fine. Remember that you can always
manually reimport if new changes need to be reflected outside
the scheduled reimport.




If your help center requires users to sign in, or if you otherwise want to
import restricted articles:
Toggle Import private articles on.
In Email, enter the email address of a user authorized to
access the restricted content. This is typically the email address
of a Knowledge admin.

In API access token, enter an API token that you
generate for this purpose.


Click Import.



Note: When importing restricted articles, if the email or
API token is incorrect, no warnings or errors are presented. Instead, only
public articles are imported, not restricted articles. It's highly
recommended to double-check the credentials before importing and test that
the AI agent can answer questions using restricted articles after the import
has finished.




Importing a Salesforce help center (Legacy)

Client admins can import a Salesforce help center.
To import a Salesforce 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 Add source. The Add source pane opens.

In Type, select Salesforce.
Click Sign in to Salesforce.
Log in to your Salesforce environment.
In Help center URL, enter the full URL of your Salesforce help
center.
In Source name, enter a name for your source. This name is used in
reporting within the AI agents reporting dashboard.

In Import frequency, select how often the help center content should
be reimported:

Daily: Content is reimported every day excluding Sundays and
the 15th of the month. Not recommended unless your knowledge source
is updated very frequently.

Weekly: Content is reimported each week on Sunday.

Monthly: Content is reimported on the 15th of each
month.

Never: Content is imported once and is never reimported.
The exact timing of a reimport isn't guaranteed. The reimport
is processed during the day it's scheduled for, but might not
always be ready at a consistent time.
Regular reimporting
keeps the AI agent up to date. For most organizations, a weekly
or monthly cadence is fine. Remember that you can always
manually reimport if new changes need to be reflected outside
the scheduled reimport.



Click Import.




Importing a Freshdesk help center (Legacy)

Client admins can import a Freshdesk help center.
To import a Freshdesk 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 Add source. The Add source pane opens.

In Type, select Freshdesk.
In Help center URL, enter the full URL of your Freshdesk help
center. You can add your whole help center, or only a certain section
of your help center.

In Source name, enter a name for your source. This name is used in
reporting within the AI agents reporting dashboard.

In Import frequency, select how often the help center content should
be reimported:

Daily: Content is reimported every day excluding Sundays and
the 15th of the month. Not recommended unless your knowledge source
is updated very frequently.

Weekly: Content is reimported each week on Sunday.

Monthly: Content is reimported on the 15th of each
month.

Never: Content is imported once and is never reimported.
The exact timing of a reimport isn't guaranteed. The reimport
is processed during the day it's scheduled for, but might not
always be ready at a consistent time.
Regular reimporting
keeps the AI agent up to date. For most organizations, a weekly
or monthly cadence is fine. Remember that you can always
manually reimport if new changes need to be reflected outside
the scheduled reimport.



In API access token, enter an API token that you generate in
Freshdesk for this purpose.
Click Import.




Importing a Confluence site or space (Legacy)

Client admins can import a Confluence site or space.
Confluence connections are created and managed in Knowledge. You must create a Confluence connection in
Knowledge before you can connect a Confluence site or space to your
AI agent.
Unlike other knowledge sources for AI agents, you can’t specify a reimport
frequency for Confluence content. Confluence connections automatically sync
every 24 hours, but you can manually resync the content if
needed.
To import a Confluence site or space


In the AI agents workspace, select the AI agent you want to work
with.
Click
Content in the sidebar, then select Knowledge sources.
Click Add source. The Add source pane opens.

In Type, select Confluence.

In Domain, enter the URL of your Zendesk subdomain (for example,
https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com).
In Email, enter the email address of a Zendesk admin.
In API access token, enter an API token that you generate
for this purpose.
Click Authorize.
Select a Confluence site or space that’s already been connected to your
Zendesk account, or create a new Confluence
connection. You can select more than one.


Click Save.


The Confluence site or space you selected is added to your list of knowledge
sources.



Importing a CSV file (Legacy)

Client admins can import a CSV file as a knowledge source.
To import a CSV file


In the AI agents workspace, select the AI agent you want to work
with.
Click
Content in the sidebar, then select Knowledge sources.
Click Add source. The Add source pane opens.

In Type, select File (CSV).
Click Select knowledge source CSV file.
Select the CSV file you want to import. See Required formatting for the CSV file to ensure your file is
properly formatted.

In Source name, enter a name for your source. This name is used
in reporting within the AI agents reporting dashboard.


Click Import.




Note: CSV files cannot be reimported automatically. If
your content changes, you need to update the CSV file or create a new one
and import it again.



Required formatting for the CSV file

The CSV file you upload as a knowledge source must have one row for each
article you want to import. The file must include the following columns:


title: The title of the article.

content: The full content of the article.
The content can contain HTML tags, so there's no need to strip
those out. In fact, tags can help as they give structure to the
articles, and that structure helps the AI agent understand the
article sections.
The content can also contain Markdown, but the Markdown must be
valid or else the content of that cell will not be imported.
Additionally, if the Markdown has been written in such a way
that the cell is a single line of more than 2,000 characters,
importing the cell fails without showing any warnings.



You can also include the following optional columns:


labels: A list of label names separated by a space. The values
can be anything you want to categorize content by.

locale: Used to organize articles by language or market. While
the values can technically be anything, it's recommended to follow
standard locale notation (for example, en-US or fi-FI).

article_url: The external web address where the article can be
found. This is used in source attribution in the widget and reporting
within the AI agents reporting dashboard.

The file format must also use:

Commas (,) as a column separator and double quotes (") as the string
quote character.
The first row for column headers.
ASCII characters only. CSV files fail to import if they contain any
non-ASCII characters.

You can download a template at the bottom of this article.




Importing content with a web crawler (Legacy)

Client admins can import website content using a web crawler.
For more information about web crawler imports, see Best practices for using a web crawler to
import content for AI agents and Troubleshooting issues with web crawler
imports for AI agents.


Note: Currently, you can't use the web crawler on a site
protected by single sign-on (SSO). Instead, you can import a CSV file.

To import web-crawled content


In the AI agents workspace, select the AI agent you want to work
with.
Click
Content in the sidebar, then select Knowledge sources.
Click Add source. The Add source pane opens.

In Type, select Web crawler.
In Source name, enter a name for your source. This name is used
in reporting within the AI agents reporting dashboard.

Select Crawl exact URL if you want the web crawler to import
information only from webpages listed in the Start URLs field, not
including any sub-pages. When this option is not selected, the web
crawler applies a maximum crawling depth of 15 sub-pages for any
URLs listed in Start URLs.

In Start URLs, enter the URLs you want the web crawler to go
through. List each URL on a separate line.

In Import frequency, select how often the crawled content should
be reimported:

Daily: Content is reimported every day excluding Sundays
and the 15th of the month. Not recommended unless your knowledge
source is updated very frequently.

Weekly: Content is reimported each week on Sunday.

Monthly: Content is reimported on the 15th of each
month.

Never: Content is imported once and is never reimported.
The exact timing of a reimport isn't guaranteed. The
reimport is processed during the day it's scheduled for, but
might not always be ready at a consistent
time.
Regular reimporting keeps the AI agent up to
date. For most organizations, a weekly or monthly cadence is
fine. Remember that you can always manually reimport if new
changes need to be reflected outside the scheduled
reimport.




(Optional) Expand Crawler settings to configure advanced crawler
settings. See Configuring advanced crawler settings for
details.

Note: These settings are
recommended only for organizations with complex technical
requirements. Many organizations do not need these settings.


(Optional) Expand HTML processing to configure advanced HTML
settings. See Configuring advanced HTML settings for
details.

Note: These settings are
recommended only for organizations with complex technical
requirements. Many organizations do not need these settings.


Click Import.




Configuring advanced crawler settings




Under the Crawler
settings heading, in Crawler type, select one of
the following options:

Adaptive switching between browser and raw HTTP
(Default): Fast and renders JavaScript content if
present.

Headless browser (Firefox + Playwright): Reliable,
renders JavaScript content, best in avoiding blocking, but
might be slow.

Raw HTTP client (Cheerio): Fastest, but doesn’t
render JavaScript content.

Raw with JavaScript: Crawl the page as if using
JavaScript.


Select Include URLs or Exclude URLs to customize the
crawling scope set in the Start URLs field above. In the field
below each setting, enter the URLs you want to include or
exclude. Enter each URL on its own line.
These settings
affect only the links found while crawling sub-pages. If you want to
crawl a page, make sure to specify its URL in the Start URLs field.
For example, if the URL structure is inconsistent as in the
example below:

Start URL:
https://support.example.com/en/support/home

Article URL:
https://support.example.com/en/support/solutions/articles/…


You can add the following URL in the Include URLs field:


https://support.example.com/en/support/**


This way, the web crawler will include all of the articles,
even though their path is different from the starting URL.

As another example, the following page is very broad and
includes irrelevant pages (for example, the careers page):
Start URL: https://www.example.com/en


To exclude these irrelevant pages, you can add the following
URL in the Exclude URLs field:
https://www.example.com/en/careers/**

This way, the web crawler will exclude all of the content from
the careers page and its sub-pages.
Tip: More powerful than plain text, globs are
patterns that let you use special characters to create dynamic
URLs for the web crawler to search. Here are a few examples:

https://support.example.com/** lets the
crawler access all URLs starting with
https://support.example.com/.

https://{store,docs}.example.com/**
lets the crawler access all URLs starting with
https://store.example.com/ or https://docs.example.com/.

https://example.com/**/*\?*foo=* allows
the crawler to access all URLs that contain foo query
parameters with any value.

Learn more about globs and test them on the DigitalOcean
website.

In Max pages to crawl, enter the maximum number of pages the
web crawler will go through, including the starting URL. This
includes the starting URL, pagination pages, pages with no
content, and more. The web crawler will automatically stop after
reaching this limit.

In Max crawling depth, enter the maximum number of links the
web crawler will follow from the starting URL. The starting URL
has a depth of 0. Pages linked directly from the starting URL
have a depth of 1, and so on. Use this setting to prevent
accidental web crawler runaway.

In Proxy configuration, select one of the following options:


Datacenter (Default): Fastest method to scrape data.

Residential: Reduced performance, but less likely to
be blocked. Ideal for when the default proxy is blocked or
when you need to crawl from a specific country.








Configuring advanced HTML settings




Under the HTML
processing heading, in Keep HTML elements, enter a
CSS selector to keep only specified HTML elements. All other
content will be removed, helping you focus only on relevant
information.

In Remove HTML elements, choose which HTML elements to remove
before converting to text, Markdown, or saving as HTML. This helps
exclude unwanted content.

In Expand clickable elements, enter a valid CSS selector
matching DOM elements that will be clicked. This is useful for
expanding collapsed sections in order to capture their text
content.

In HTML transformer, select one of the following values to
define how to clean up the HTML to keep only important content and
remove extraneous content (for example, navigation or pop-ups):

Extractus: (Not recommended) Uses the Extractus
library.

None: Removes only the HTML elements specified in the
Remove HTML elements option above.

Readable text: Uses Mozilla's Readability library to
extract the main article content, removing navigation,
headers, footers, and other non-essential elements. Works
best for article-rich websites and blogs.

Readable text if possible: Uses Mozilla's Readability
library to extract the main content, but falls back to the
original HTML if the page doesn't appear to be an article.
This is useful for websites with mixed content types, such
as articles or product pages, as it preserves more content
on non-article pages.



In Wait for dynamic content, enter the number of seconds the
crawler should wait for dynamic content to load. By default, it
waits five seconds or until the page finishes loading, whichever
comes first.
In Soft wait for selector, enter CSS selectors for HTML
elements that the crawler should wait to load before extracting
content. If the selected element isn't present, the crawler
still crawls that page.
List each CSS selector on a
separate line.

In Wait for selector, enter CSS selectors for HTML elements
that the crawler must wait to load before extracting content. If
the selected element isn't present, the crawler doesn't crawl
that page.
List each CSS selector on a separate
line.

In Max scroll height, enter the maximum number of pixels the
crawler should scroll. The crawler scrolls the page to load more
content until the network is idle or this scroll height is
reached. Set this to 0 to disable scrolling
completely.
This setting doesn't apply when using the raw
HTTP client, as it doesn't run JavaScript or load dynamic
content.

In Make containers sticky, enter CSS selectors for HTML
elements where child content should be kept, even if it's
hidden. List each CSS selector on a separate line.
This
is helpful when using the Expand clickable elements option on
pages that remove hidden content from the page
entirely.









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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