How to Train Your AI Agent with the Knowledge Base in Irelia.ai

~20–30 minutes setup

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Introduction

You’ve set up your Irelia.ai agent, and it’s ready to have conversations — but it doesn’t know anything about your business yet. Without the right information loaded in, your agent can’t answer questions about your pricing, services, or policies. And prospects who don’t get answers move on fast. The Knowledge Base (KB) is where you fix that. It’s the place you fill with your business’s facts, FAQs, and details so your AI agent can search through them and respond accurately to every question a prospect asks. This guide walks you through everything: understanding how the Knowledge Base works, structuring your content for the best results, uploading it into Irelia, and setting up smart features like document assignment and gap detection. By the end of this guide, you’ll have: ✅ A clear understanding of how the Knowledge Base works and what content belongs there
✅ Well-structured Q&A documents uploaded and trained in your Irelia agent
✅ Customer reviews added for social proof in conversations
✅ Documents assigned to the right agents for maximum accuracy
✅ Notifications set up to automatically catch Knowledge Base gaps

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How This Works

Think of the Knowledge Base as a reference library your AI agent can search during conversations. No technical background required — here’s the flow: The key insight: your AI agent doesn’t memorize your content — it searches through your Knowledge Base every time it needs to answer a question. This means:

• ✅ Information must be findable — Write content that matches how prospects ask questions
• ✅ Clarity matters — Clear, well-structured info = better answers
• ✅ Updates are instant — Change a document, and the AI immediately uses the new version

When we say you’re “training” the AI, you’re not teaching it to think differently. You’re simply giving it access to the specific business facts it needs. The AI already knows how to have conversations — your job is to provide the business-specific information it needs to be helpful.

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📝 What You’ll Do

Here’s a quick overview of the steps in this guide:

1. Set up your Knowledge Base — Access the KB, create documents, add content, and train your agent (~15 minutes)
2. Add customer reviews — Upload testimonials for social proof (~5 minutes)
3. Assign documents to specific agents — Control which agents access which information (~3 minutes)
4. Set up missing info notifications — Enable gap detection for continuous improvement (~2 minutes)

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📋 What You’ll Need

• An Irelia.ai account with at least one active agent Required
• Your business information gathered and ready (FAQs, pricing, product/service details, policies) Required
• An LLM with reasoning capabilities (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or similar) to help format your content — see the LLM section for ready-to-use prompts Optional

No coding required. If you can copy and paste, you can do this.

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⚖️ Knowledge Base vs. Prompt: What Goes Where?

This is the #1 source of confusion for new users. Let’s clear it up.

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The Clear Distinction

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📥 What Belongs in the Knowledge Base

Information your AI can look up and share:

• Product/service descriptions
• Pricing and packages
• FAQs and common objections
• Company information and history
• Process explanations (how things work)
• Policies (shipping, refunds, etc.)
• Case studies and results

Example: “Q: What are your pricing plans? A: We offer three plans: Starter at €29/month (up to 100 contacts), Growth at €79/month (up to 1,000 contacts), and Enterprise at €199/month (unlimited contacts with priority support).” This is a fact about your business. When someone asks about pricing, the AI searches for this information and shares it.

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🚫 What Doesn’t Belong in the Knowledge Base

These are behavioral instructions — they belong in the Prompt:

• “Always be friendly and professional”
• “If someone asks about price, first understand their needs”
• “Never promise exact results”
• “Always try to schedule a call”
• “Speak in first person as the company”
• Conversation flow instructions
• Qualifying questions to ask

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The Quick Test

Ask yourself: “Is this a FACT or an INSTRUCTION?”

• Fact → Knowledge Base
• Instruction → Prompt

That’s it. Keep them separate, and your AI will perform much better.

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✍️ Best Practices for Structuring Your Content

How you structure your information directly impacts how well your AI can find and use it.

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💎 The Golden Format: Q&A Style

The most effective format for Knowledge Base content is Question & Answer: Q: What are your business hours? A: We’re open Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM (CET). We’re closed on weekends and Italian public holidays. Why this works:

• Mirrors how prospects actually ask questions
• Easy for the AI to match questions to answers
• Simple to maintain and update

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🔄 Include Question Variations

People ask the same thing in many different ways. Adding variations helps the AI match and retrieve the right information, no matter how a prospect phrases their request. Example: Q: What are your business hours? / When are you open? / What time do you close? / Are you open on weekends? / Can I reach you on Saturdays? A: We’re open Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM (CET). We’re closed on weekends and Italian public holidays. Five different questions, one answer. The more angles you cover, the more reliably your AI finds the right answer.

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🧭 The 5W Framework: Anticipate Every Question

Use this framework to brainstorm what questions your prospects might ask:

• ❓ WHAT — What is your product? What does it include? What results can I expect?
• 🤔 WHY — Why should I choose you over competitors? Why does this approach work?
• ⏰ WHEN — When can I start? When will I see results? When are you available?
• 👤 WHO — Who is this for? Who’s behind the company? Who will I work with?
• 📍 WHERE — Where are you located? Where do you ship/operate?
• ⚙️ HOW — How does it work? How do I get started? How much does it cost?

Go through each category and write Q&A pairs for the questions your prospects actually ask.

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📂 Document Organization: Think in Categories

Don’t put everything in one giant document. Split your information by topic — this makes it easier to update specific sections and assign only relevant content to specific agents. For example, you might create separate documents for:

• Coaching Service FAQs — your process, onboarding steps, timelines, common questions and objections
• Online Course FAQs — costs, what’s included, payment options, common questions and objections
• Company Info — about us, team, credentials

The exact categories depend on your business. Think about the main topics prospects ask about, and create one document per topic.

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Formatting Tips

✅ Do:

• Use clear, simple language
• Include specific numbers and details
• Include variations of how people might ask

❌ Don’t:

• Use complex jargon without explanation
• Include contradictory information
• Write walls of text without structure

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💰 Strategic Price Omission for Service Businesses

If you’re selling high-ticket services, consider not including specific pricing in your Knowledge Base. Instead, add this to your FAQs: “Q: How much does it cost? / What are your prices? A: Pricing depends on your specific situation and goals. Book a quick call with our team and we’ll give you a custom quote based on your needs.” Why this works from a sales perspective: When someone’s first question is “how much does it cost?”, they’re often comparing you on price alone — essentially commoditizing your service. By directing them to a call, you:

• ✅ Keep curiosity alive — Price curiosity is a powerful motivation to book a call. Once you reveal the number, that motivation disappears — they either dismiss you as “too expensive” without context, or they get what they needed and leave.
• ✅ Create the opportunity to frame value properly — In a sales meeting, you can understand their specific needs, position your solution, differentiate from competitors, and help them see the true value of what you offer.

This shifts the conversation from price-based buying (who’s cheapest?) to value-based buying (who’s the best fit for my needs?). In a call, you can better create the right framing. Based on our experience, service businesses that use this approach see more booked calls and higher-quality conversations.

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⚡ Quick Path (Experienced Users)

Already familiar with Irelia’s Knowledge Base? Here’s the condensed version:

1. Irelia: Go to irelia.ai/settings → click the Knowledge Base icon in the left sidebar
2. Create: Click ”+ Create a new document” → Name it descriptively → Add Q&A formatted content
3. Save: Click “Save” → Wait for the ✓ checkmark confirming training is complete
4. Reviews: Switch to the “Reviews” tab → Create one document per review using the format “[Name] from [Source] says: [review text]” → Save each one
5. Assign: Go to your agent’s settings → “Knowledge Base” section → Toggle off “Allow this agent to access all information” → Select specific documents
6. Notify: Go to your agent’s “Events and Notifications” tab → Enable the missing info notification → Add a webhook URL or enable email alerts

Need more detail? Continue with the full guide below.

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🔧 Step-by-Step Setup

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🎉 Congratulations! You Did It!

Take a moment to appreciate what you just built: ✅ Your AI agent has a fully stocked Knowledge Base with your business information
✅ Customer reviews are ready to use as social proof in conversations
✅ Each agent only accesses relevant documents for more accurate responses
✅ Missing info notifications ensure your Knowledge Base keeps improving automatically What happens now: Every time a prospect asks a question, your AI agent searches through your Knowledge Base, finds the most relevant information, and crafts a natural, accurate response — without you lifting a finger.

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What’s Next?

Now that your Knowledge Base is set up, the possibilities are wide open. Your options from here:

1. 🤖 Want help creating content? Jump to Using an LLM to Prepare Your Documents for ready-to-use prompts that speed up content creation
2. 🔍 Want to understand your AI’s answers? Check out Debugging to see exactly which information the AI uses for each response
3. 📋 Want to verify everything’s set up correctly? Use the Quick Checklist to make sure nothing was missed
4. ➕ Have more content to add? Repeat Steps 2–4 for each new topic — create a new document, add Q&A content, and save

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🤖 Using an LLM to Prepare Your Documents

Don’t have time to write everything from scratch? Any powerful LLM with reasoning enabled will do — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or similar. Just paste the prompts below into your preferred tool.

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Method 1: Transform Existing Documents and Web Pages

If you already have business information (website copy, brochures, internal docs), use this prompt to convert it into Knowledge Base format:

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Method 2: Generate Questions and Objections from Scratch

Don’t have existing content? Use this prompt to generate a complete Knowledge Base starting from just a description of your business: This gives you a solid foundation to customize with your specific details.

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Review Before Uploading

Always review AI-generated content before adding it to your Knowledge Base:

• ✅ Adjust the tone to match your brand
• ✅ Add specific details (numbers, names, etc.)
• ✅ Check for accuracy and remove irrelevant information

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🔍 Debugging: Understanding How Your AI Uses Your Info

Need to understand why the AI gave a specific answer? Irelia has built-in debugging tools that show you exactly which Knowledge Base content the AI used.

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🔬 How to Access Debug Info

1. Go to irelia.ai/leads (your chat panel)
2. Find a conversation where the AI responded
3. Look for the info icon (ℹ️) next to AI messages — this icon indicates which message pulled information from the Knowledge Base to reply

4. Click the icon to open the debug popup

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👁️ What You’ll See

The popup shows:

• Information chunks pulled — The exact pieces of your Knowledge Base the AI found relevant
• Summary — A condensed view of the relevant information pulled (what the AI actually uses to reply)

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📈 How to Use This for Improvement

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✅ Quick Checklist

Use this to verify your Knowledge Base setup is complete: ✅ All checked? Your Knowledge Base is ready!

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🛠️ Troubleshooting & FAQs