April 24th, 2024

The Lazy Developer’s Guide to Creating AI Chatbots

A practical guide to identifying knowledge bottlenecks and deploying AI-enabled solutions to break down knowledge silos in your engineering team.

by April Cho, Product Director at QueryPal

In 2024, the question many teams face isn’t whether to adopt AI productivity tools but rather how to adopt them. In particular, AI is transforming the way that developers search for and share knowledge at a rapid pace. We are connecting with more and more engineering and IT teams that are looking to use AI to efficiently query all their company data without needing to navigate through vast codebases, documentation, commit logs and developer forums.

For many of these forward-thinking teams, the dilemma lies in choosing between developing a bespoke solution or using existing software solutions. While the former might entice organizations with a dedicated AI strategy and budget, many teams are likely looking for frictionless and user-friendly way to facilitate knowledge sharing within their teams. The latter option provides a path that is more accessible to the majority of companies that don’t want to deal with the burden of specifying features and maintaining the quality of an internal product.

To guarantee your knowledge automation actually saves your team time instead of just sitting unused in channels or turning into shelf-ware, we’ve created a practical, step-by-step guide outlining the essential steps for the fastest way to create a custom chatbot for your team.

The first step is identifying where your team hits informational roadblocks. Look for repetitive queries or processes that slow down operations. These are your prime candidates for automation. Areas ripe for AI intervention might include smoothing out onboarding, fielding recurring employee questions, automating routine operational tasks or streamlining customer support.

Imagine we’re creating an AI assistant for an engineering team. The mission is straightforward: Arm the assistant with all the necessary knowledge sources, be it strategy documents on Notion, Slack discussions, Jira boards or GitHub repositories. This preparation ensures the AI assistant can pull from the entire knowledge stack, delivering precise, relevant support.

With your resources mapped out, the next phase involves integrating these varied sources with an automation platform. Tools like QueryPal offer seamless connections across data silos, ensuring your AI assistant has a holistic view to draw from when answering inquiries.

Deploying an AI assistant isn’t a “set it and forget it” affair. Some testing within the intended environment — like directly in a chat interface — helps iron out kinks, ensuring responses are both accurate and contextually appropriate. This stage is crucial for refining the assistant’s capabilities, ideally with input from a select group of team members.

Once tuned and ready, it’s time to acquaint your team with its new digital colleague. The key here is integration without disruption. Your aim is to weave the assistant into existing workflows seamlessly, enhancing productivity without imposing new learning curves. Platforms like QueryPal embed directly into familiar interfaces like Slack, thus avoiding the need for team members to navigate new tools or commands.

Venturing into AI-assisted operations isn’t reserved only for early adopters. It’s a viable path for teams of any size, provided you identify clear automation opportunities, choose the right tools and approach implementation methodically. Companies in industries ranging from education to IT consulting are implementing AI knowledge automation across all areas of their operations. An AI assistant, thoughtfully deployed, can significantly boost productivity and efficiency across various functions — from onboarding new hires to ensuring quick customer responses.

QueryPal is designed to meet you where you are, enhancing your team’s efficiency without overhauling your existing processes. Interested? A deeper dive into QueryPal’s capabilities might just be the next step in your team’s evolutionary journey.