How much of your workday feels like a scavenger hunt? Maybe you’re fishing for a contract on the company drive or trying to figure out who’s leading a new marketing campaign.
On average, desk workers report spending 41% of their time on repetitive or low-impact tasks, including tracking down the resources they need to do their jobs. These information silos aren’t just frustrating—they create gaps in how your business operates and ultimately affect your bottom line.
Knowledge base software powered by AI provides an essential solution that puts everything you need at your fingertips. Discover how today’s leading systems elevate information organization and collaboration to build stronger customer relationships.
What is knowledge base software?
Knowledge base software offers a centralized digital hub that organizations can use to gather, store, organize, and share information among teams. These solutions are the single source of truth for company knowledge, documentation, and best practices.
Today’s knowledge base software goes beyond simple document storage. AI features are reinventing knowledge base tools by introducing capabilities like enterprise search, which enables teammates to search their company’s connected apps and customer data. They can ask questions and surface information from anywhere in a system without context switching.
When employees can easily access and contribute to company knowledge, they’re empowered to work smarter, faster, and more productively.
Types of knowledge base software
Choosing the right knowledge base tool for your company depends on the type of information you need to centralize, your current pain points, and future goals. Here are a few different types to consider:
Internal vs. external knowledge bases
Internal solutions organize company policies, human resources procedures, product information, institutional knowledge, and internal communication. On the other hand, external knowledge bases provide a repository where customers and customer-facing employees, like service reps and customer success teams, can quickly find answers to questions, troubleshoot issues, and access helpful resources.
Cloud-based vs. on-premise
Cloud-based systems are remotely accessible through the internet rather than being locally accessible on machines. Cloud-based software offers automatic updates, scalability, and typically subscription-based pricing, known as software as a service or SaaS.
On-premise knowledge bases are installed and managed within an organization’s own infrastructure. These solutions provide greater control over data and security but may require more maintenance and technical expertise.
AI-powered knowledge base platforms
Knowledge management AI can analyze and organize vast amounts of data, historical context, and company policies, making information readily available to employees whenever they need it.
Agentforce, a tool that lets companies build and deploy autonomous AI agents across all business areas, is an example of AI technology that uses your company’s trusted data—like knowledge base articles or company policies—to support customers and employees.
Wikis
A wiki is a collaborative platform where teams can create and update knowledge in real time. Unlike static knowledge bases, wikis are built for ongoing input and editing, making them collaborative and easy to iterate. However, they may become disorganized or outdated without a process for governance and maintenance.
Top knowledge base software platforms for 2025
Software is a major investment, and choosing an effective knowledge base for your organization is a strategic decision. Here are some of the top tools of 2025 to help you get started.
The following list is curated from G2, which scores software based on user feedback, features available, and overall satisfaction. G2 uses a five-star system focused on usability, customer satisfaction, and market presence. Each of the tools listed here has a minimum rating of four stars, ensuring they are top contenders for streamlining your knowledge management process, improving collaboration, and helping your team work smarter.
1. Slack
More than 70% of applications are not fully integrated or connected across the typical enterprise, according to an annual MuleSoft report. Slack’s powerful work operating system addresses this by connecting all the essential components of work—people, knowledge, tools, and AI agents—into a single, conversational platform.
By unifying organizational data in Slack, teams can easily search and find what they need to collaborate with one another. Channels provide public or private spaces for real-time and asynchronous communication, as well as access to everyday tools and data. Enterprise search in Slack builds on its conversational AI search experience, allowing users to connect third-party apps and drives to create a central, searchable hub for all your company’s knowledge and data.
2. Confluence by Atlassian
Confluence’s dedicated knowledge base software and collaborative workspace help organizations create, organize, and share information across departments. Teams can create living documentation with rich formatting, embedded media, and interactive elements such as tables, charts, and macros. Confluence provides version control, permission settings for secure information sharing, and seamless integration with other Atlassian products like Jira, as well as third-party applications like Slack.
3. Help Scout
Help Scout is an all-in-one platform for customer service that provides a unified space for team collaboration, self-service support, live chat features, and proactive messaging tools. It includes robust reporting and analytics to track team performance and customer satisfaction, automated workflows to handle routine tasks, and seamless integration with popular business tools. Help Scout also offers AI tools that can draft and edit messages, answer customer questions based on your knowledge base, and automate tasks.
4. Notion
Notion provides a collaborative workspace that integrates note-taking, project management, and dozens of enterprise apps in a flexible platform. Teammates can use customizable building blocks and databases to easily create wiki pages for projects and departments. In Notion, you can view projects in multiple formats—status views, timelines, or Kanban boards—and organize tasks into charts and tables to monitor progress. Teams can delegate responsibilities by assigning tasks to colleagues and streamline their work by automating sprints and workflows. Use Notion’s integration for Slack to preserve knowledge created in Slack and stay updated on work progress in Notion.
5. Freshdesk
Freshdesk offers an AI-powered knowledge base platform for customer service teams. This help desk solution unifies conversations and information across multiple channels—including email, phone, web, chat, and social media—empowering teammates to swiftly resolve customer issues across common touchpoints.
A unified ticketing inbox allows agents to prioritize tickets and auto-assign tasks, preventing customer queries from slipping through the cracks. Freshdesk also offers a 360-degree view of customer history to provide reps and leaders with key activities, past interactions, preferred channels, downloads, and more. Its Slack integration allows you to push new and updated ticket notifications to a Slack channel through automation.
6. Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint is a content and knowledge management system for enterprises. Teams can store, organize, share, and access documents from any device with document management capabilities. Key features include:
- Intranet and internal sites for organizing projects and work across departments
- Search to help teammates find information across the organization
- Workflows to automate routine business processes
- Integration with other apps to provide business insights and analytics
- Group collaboration features to boost communication and knowledge sharing
SharePoint is available as a cloud service with a Microsoft 365 subscription, as an on-premise solution, and as a Slack integration.
7. Guru
Guru codifies collective knowledge and simplifies information sharing by providing a single source of truth for companies. Guru provides quick access to accurate information without requiring teammates to interrupt their workflow or switch between applications. Guru’s Slack integration lets teams use AI search to pull info from their company data and get instant answers where they’re already working. Plus, teams can edit in real time, provide in-line comments, and share drafts instantly to keep knowledge bases current.
8. Intercom
Intercom is an AI-driven customer service solution that enhances user experiences, boosts operational performance, and adapts to your company’s growth. Built on an integrated AI framework, this platform helps teams elevate customer service delivery. Its omnichannel platform draws from a comprehensive help center with support touchpoints for customer engagement. Its built-in AI agent provides natural, human-like automated support across all customer communication channels. When integrated with Slack, Intercom gives teams automatic alerts to conversations and ticket activity directly in their workflow.
9. Document360
Document360 delivers AI-powered internal knowledge base software as well as public solutions, including how-to guides, help centers, and FAQs. These tools provide customers with answers when they need them while giving support agents critical resources for faster issue resolution.
Document360’s AI search tool helps customers quickly find answers by searching its external knowledge base. Meanwhile, its category manager tool keeps articles and resources tidy and up-to-date. SEO optimization boosts discoverability for public-facing resources. With Document360 for Slack, you can connect your service team with your knowledge base without leaving your workspace.
10. Zendesk
Zendesk is an AI-enhanced support desk that reduces workloads for customer service, IT, and human resources teams through automation. Zendesk offers external knowledge base tools that empower customers to help themselves. These tools allow you to do things like create and publish easy-to-find help center articles, reduce service team workload with automated AI responses, update articles and resources in bulk, and get insights into successful help desk articles with analytics. Update teams in Slack on Zendesk support activity with trigger-based notifications by connecting Zendesk with Slack.
Key benefits of knowledge base software
When you need information fast, having to scour emails, tools, and private messages is a waste of precious time. That’s why integrating knowledge base software into your tech stack can transform company-wide collaboration and cohesion, ultimately delivering better experiences for your employees and customers. Key benefits include:
- Improved customer self-service. An external knowledge base empowers customers to find answers independently, 24/7, without waiting for support reps to answer queries during business hours. When customers can find the information they need without delay, it contributes to a positive customer experience.
- Enhanced internal knowledge sharing. An intuitive, easy-to-navigate system for collecting, structuring, and distributing institutional knowledge strengthens interpersonal connections. This cultivates stronger mutual trust among colleagues and ultimately leads to a more satisfied and productive workforce.
- Increased operational efficiency. When teams spend less time looking for and answering basic questions, they can give more energy to complex, high-value work. Capturing insights and processes in a secure and accessible knowledge base protects institutional knowledge and minimizes disruptions caused by employee turnover.
Essential features of knowledge base software
When choosing a knowledge base solution for your enterprise, focus on these essential features:
- Easy-to-use editing and customization
- Advanced search and analytics
- Seamless integrations with other tools
- Strong security and access controls
For one edge cloud platform, Slack’s work OS is its knowledge base solution of choice. “Slack was the thing that made the most sense,” said the company’s director of customer experience. “We used it internally for cross-department communication and realized we could use it with customers too. It was a way to get that chat feel in a more scalable, accessible manner.”
These Slack features can help you manage knowledge more effectively:
- AI-powered search help teams quickly find past conversations, shared files, and other key data.
- Workflow automation tools capture and share key information, such as meeting summaries and next steps.
- Third-party AI agents help teams work faster and smarter across all areas of business.
- Seamless integration with more than 2,600 apps means teams can combine the tools they rely on with Slack’s unified work OS.
- Enterprise-grade data security ensures that only the right people and approved devices can access your company’s information.
Do your best work with the right knowledge base tools
Knowledge base software is no longer optional—it’s essential for operational efficiency. With the right knowledge management system in place, you’ll reduce operational costs, preserve institutional wisdom, and empower both employees and customers to find answers quickly—creating a foundation for sustainable growth and innovation.
This article is for informational purposes only. This article features products from Slack, which we own. We have a financial interest in their success, but all recommendations are based on our genuine belief in their value.