A knowledge assistant is useful when people can check why it gave an answer. Begin with a team-owned collection, a defined audience, and a rule for questions the collection cannot answer. Make links and access checks part of the deliverable.
Select sources the team can maintain
Create an inventory of approved documents with their owners, current versions, and source links. Include only material that belongs in the pilot. Identify contradictory guidance, obsolete copies, and formats that are hard to extract. Keep the owner responsible for resolving conflicts before an answer depends on them.
Keep retrieval within the audience boundary
Decide which people can see which sources and enforce the boundary before returning excerpts or links. Use source titles and sections so a reader can verify the quoted context. If the content does not support an answer, give the relevant contact or next step rather than guessing. Test the fallback on questions that sound plausible but are outside scope.
Maintain an evaluation set
Include questions with one clear answer, questions whose sources disagree, and questions about restricted material. Check whether the answer matches the source, whether its link leads to the right place, and whether the assistant abstains when needed. Recheck the set when the collection or access rules change.
Example
Ask a sample handbook question with two policy revisions and show how the answer cites the current one.
What to do next
A source link lets a person verify the response. Access rules and fallback behavior determine whether that response should be shown.