KM trends and challenges for 2023

Knowledge management, like any field, must mold to the form of the latest and greatest strategies and tools to truly succeed in a modern workplace environment. Just as new challenges present themselves during these times of hybrid/remote workforces and cloud computing, opportunities for innovation arise as well.

From automation and software use cases, to efficient legacy system policies, to streamlined knowledge ingestion, experts at CKO, Access, and Verint gathered to offer their insights in KMWorld’s webinar, “The Top Trends in KM for 2023.”

According to John Lewis, Ed.D., CKO at SearchBlox, the most-used hyperlink on the internet is “BACK,” representing a mass efflux of users leaving websites. Why? Lewis pointed to poor end-user experiences, laden with slow loading speeds, unappealing content/form, and an inability to efficiently search or find answers to users’ questions.

Finding answers to questions is of particular significance in regards to KM’s 2023 trends. Lewis explained that existing information retrieval systems are designed to find documents, not answers; this results in specific answers buried in documents, unable to be found. Organizations invested in a “work-around” strategy: creating documents that contain only one answer, manageable with only the most frequent questions. This created the infamous FAQ list, which, as Lewis cited, has become unacceptable for modern KM.

FAQ lists are manually produced based on research and assumptions for the frequency of specific questions, rendering a heap of knowledge left elusive. Duplicate content and dead-end logic further pose a challenge to traditional FAQs, manifesting as un-synced and out-of-context knowledge.

SearchBlox’s solution, SmartFAQs, holistically analyzes a range of content for manual and automatic FAQ creation leveraging advanced AI to find documents and answers. SmartFAQs keeps answers in sync with document content, as well as provides precise answers and contextual links integrated with search results.

Lewis also introduced:

• SmartSynonyms, SearchBlox’s AI-created synonym list, which automatically matches queries with related terms and concepts found in your content with the aid of a human curator—mitigating searches that require specific keywords and manual synonym population.
• SearchBlox’s PreText NLP that automatically fixes content metadata to increase findability without making changes to the original content.

Randy Sanders, senior product manager at Access, opened succinctly; information is constantly evolving.

Because of this constant fluctuation of information’s needs, organizations exhibited four overarching trends in 2023, according to Sanders: digitizing physical records, security and compliance, tight budgets, and AI and emerging technology.

Forty-one percent of companies have sought out digitizing physical paper records and content to ameliorate the widening gap between legacy and modern infrastructures, while 34% of enterprises turned to enhancing security and compliance to meet goals.

These goals are top of mind while overall budgets are tightening; 45% of companies are aiming to contain or reduce costs, while only 18% can focus on investments in innovation and new technologies.

Furthermore, AI has become the gold standard for modernizing an enterprise, where leveraging AI to enhance knowledge identification, provide auto-classification of knowledge, and to enrich knowledge metadata is increasingly critical.

The solution, Sanders explained, takes shape in a few guiding principles:

• Any improvements to an organization must support performance and growth.
• Look toward holistic platforms with multiple security methodologies across various formats.
• Cultivate accurate, defensible records management from creation to destruction.
• Encourage information management with layers of security protection and on-demand experts.
• Ensure information is agile.

John Chmaj, senior director of KM Strategy at Verint, highlighted KM automation via intelligent tools and intelligent KM integrations (Knowledge-as-as-Service) as the foremost trends for 2023.

KM automation with intelligent tools is a necessary step in easing the knowledge burden that many data-overwhelmed organizations face. Verint’s real-time knowledge and speech technology uses contextual knowledge to guide contact center agents in customer interactions, in real-time, to alleviate the KM burden.

KM’s maturity has made significant strides in redefining the way knowledge is distributed and handled since 1985; its sophistication has led to Knowledge-as-a-Service, an enabler of real-time work and contextual knowledge delivery which integrates knowledge assets into any channel. 

Verint’s KM PRO solution can serve as an entire knowledge ecosystem, allowing knowledge assets to be integrated into any channel, according to Chmaj. Verint’s KM PRO:

• Is an open API, meaning all features and functions are available everywhere.
• Uses data and user causes to automate delivery of relevant, real-time knowledge suggestions.
• Incorporates multiple answer parts, aligned to channel, tech, or touchpoint.
• Consists of multiple portals for agents, staff, and customers.
• Is multilingual and multi-brand for global deployment.
• Can be embedded in CRM or WFM, boosting productivity, adoption, and compliance.

For an in-depth discussion of KM’s 2023 challenges and trends, you can view an archived version of the webinar here.