AI knowledge search for professional services firms
AI knowledge search lets staff ask questions in plain language and get answers drawn from your past work, templates, memos and internal guidance, each with links to the source documents. It searches only files the person is already allowed to open, so client confidentiality and ethical walls hold.
Knowledge search · one run
Rules · Model · Person- 1
Index permitted sources
Rules - 2
Understand the question
Model - 3
Retrieve
Rules - 4
Answer with citations
Model - 5
Verify
Person - 6
Maintain the sources
Person
- What goes in
- Document management system, memos, templates, precedents and internal guidance you choose to index
- What comes out
- Answers with citations and links to the source documents
- Who approves
- A knowledge lead owns the sources, and the person asking verifies the cited document before relying on it
Where the time goes today
What professional services teams tell us about this work.
Everyone asks the same senior person
'Do we have an earn-out clause?' 'How did we treat this in the Miller engagement?' The answer is in a folder somewhere, and the quickest route is interrupting a partner.
Search finds filenames, not answers
Keyword search in the document system returns forty files called 'Final v3'. Opening each to see which one answers the question takes longer than asking.
Knowledge leaves with people
Someone retires or moves on, and the folder structure that made sense to them becomes a maze for everyone else.
How the automated workflow runs
Each step is fixed rules, a model reading or drafting, or a person on your team. The people steps are where approvals sit.
- 1
Index permitted sources
Connects to your document system, SharePoint or file store and indexes documents with their permissions, so each user's search space matches what they can already open.
Rules - 2
Understand the question
Rewrites the question into searches, and asks a clarifying question when the matter, jurisdiction or time period is ambiguous.
Model - 3
Retrieve
Searches only documents the user can access, excludes matters under ethical walls or client restrictions, and ranks by relevance and recency.
Rules - 4
Answer with citations
Writes a short answer using only the retrieved passages, links each source, and says plainly when nothing relevant was found.
Model - 5
Verify
The person opens the cited documents before relying on the answer. The tool shows each passage in context so this takes seconds.
Person - 6
Maintain the sources
A knowledge lead reviews questions with no answer or a poor rating, fixes or adds sources, and retires outdated templates.
Person
Want to see how a project like this is scoped and delivered? Read how we work.
Controls and approvals
- Access follows client and matter permissions, applied when documents are retrieved. An ethical wall excludes documents before the model sees anything.
- Answers quote their sources with links. When the sources do not answer the question, the assistant says so instead of offering a guess.
- Query logs are visible only to a named administrator for a documented purpose and carry the same confidentiality rules as the documents.
What we leave to people
It is not a source of legal or accounting advice and does not know the law. It finds what your firm has written, so out-of-date documents produce out-of-date answers. We usually leave email archives out at first, because their permissions are harder to get right.
Systems it connects to
Examples of tools we work with for this workflow. Anything with an API or a controlled interface is in scope.
- iManage
- Microsoft 365
- Google Drive
- Confluence
- Notion
We index your document management system and file shares with their access controls, and offer search through the tool staff already use, such as Teams or a web page. Sources and permissions stay in your systems.
What to measure
We set a baseline from your own records in the audit, then report these every month.
Illustrative example
If 80 professionals each spend 30 minutes a week hunting for prior work, that is 40 hours a week across the firm. The audit asks a sample of staff what they searched for last week to see which questions are findable at all.
| Measure | How to read it |
|---|---|
| Questions answered with a cited source | Share of questions that returned an answer with at least one linked document. |
| Useful and no-answer rates | Ratings from users, and the questions with no answer, which show gaps in your sources. |
| Time to find precedent | Sampled minutes to locate a prior document, before and after launch. |
| Repeat questions to senior staff | A short monthly survey of how often people still ask a colleague for something the search should answer. |
Common questions
How does AI knowledge search keep client matters separate?
Permissions are applied when documents are retrieved. A user's question searches only files they could open anyway, and matters behind an ethical wall are excluded before any text reaches the model.
Can it answer from iManage or SharePoint?
Yes. We index those stores and respect their permissions. We confirm connection methods and what your licenses allow during the audit.
How do you stop it from making things up?
Answers are written only from retrieved passages and carry links to them. When nothing relevant is found, the assistant says so. We test it on real questions from your staff and keep a record of wrong answers to fix the sources.
Do you train a model on our documents?
No. The assistant retrieves from your documents at question time. Your data is not used to train models for other clients, and we can deploy inside your own environment if required.
Related
Tell us how your professional services team handles this today.
A 30-minute call with an engineer. You will leave knowing what a system could do for that workflow and what it would take to build.
What happens next
- 1
Strategy call
We learn how the workflow runs today and what a good outcome would be.
- 2
Workflow audit
We map the process and measure where a system would save the most time.
- 3
Proposal
A written scope, timeline and fixed price for your first system. No obligation to build.