Getting AI Generated Answers

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Access Required

Anyone on All-in-one or Enterprise plan can access this feature.

To turn off/on the Answers feature, or to set up custom prompts, you need Admin access.

Answer generation in Guru elevates an already great search experience by eliminating the traditional steps needed to find the right answer — massively decreasing the time you spend seeking out the information you need to do your job.

Guru combines your team's verified knowledge with the capability of generative AI to deliver trusted answers to questions on demand in Slack, Guru's browser extension, and Guru's web app. Guru uses secure natural language processing to interpret the keywords and meaning and responds with the one right answer. Sources (including Guru Cards and other sources) help generate the answer, which is displayed alongside the result—allowing you to access further context or update any outdated information.

Click here to test asking Guru a question in a sample workspace

Using Answers in Guru's web app

1. In Guru's web app, type a question ending with a question mark ("?") in the search bar or click the Ask a Question button in the top navigation.
2. Hit Return or Enter on your keyboard to submit.
3. Guru will respond with a suggested answer pulled from the Cards in the Collections, you have permission to plus any linked external sources (if enabled). The Sources used to generate the suggested answer appear hyperlinked below.
4. Click the Copy Answer button at the bottom right corner to copy the displayed answer to your clipboard
5. Optional: Share feedback with Guru workspace admins about Guru's suggested answer.
   1. If the answer is correct, click the thumbs-up ("👍") icon to Mark as helpful.
   2. Click the thumbs-down ("👎") icon to Flag Answer if it contains incorrect information. After flagging an answer, you will have the opportunity to provide additional context. This feedback will get logged in the AI Training Center, where this can be used to train the AI and improve answer quality going forward.
   3. Undo answer feedback by clicking the icon again. 

Using Answers in Slack

1. After a workspace admin installs Guru's app for Slack and invites the Guru app to various relevant Slack channels, there are three different ways you can ask Guru questions and receive a suggested answer:
   1. During the setup process, a Guru admin enables automatic suggested answers in specific public Slack channels;
      1. A Guru user sends a message in a channel tagging Guru's app for Slack ("@guru");
      2. A Guru user navigates to the Guru Slack app from the Apps section, clicks the Messages tab at the top of the page.
      3. In all of these scenarios, you will type a question ending with a question mark ("?") and hit Return or Enter on your keyboard to send the message.
   2. Guru will respond with a Suggested Answer pulled from Cards within the Collections you have permission to plus any linked external sources (if enabled). The sources used to generate the suggested answer appear hyperlinked below the answer.
2. Share feedback about the suggested answer. If the answer is correct, click the thumbs-up ("👍") icon to mark it as helpful. Click the thumbs-down ("👎") icon to flag an answer containing incorrect information to your workspace admin. Answer feedback cannot be undone.

Using Answers in Guru's browser extension

1. Open the Guru browser extension and click on the search bar.
2. Type your question ending with a question mark ("?") and hit Return or Enter on your keyboard to submit.
3. Guru will respond with a suggested answer pulled from Cards within the Collections you have permission to, plus any linked external sources (if enabled). The Sources used to generate the suggested answer appear hyperlinked below.
4. Share feedback with Guru workspace admins about the suggested answer. If the answer is correct, click the thumbs-up ("👍") icon to mark it as helpful. Click the thumbs-down ("👎") icon to flag an answer containing incorrect information. Undo answer feedback by clicking the same icon again.

Improving answer accuracy and quality

• Try asking more questions to explore the feature more fully. There may be other types of questions that deliver better results based on the way the question is phrased and the content of the source. 
• Check the Sources by clicking the hyperlink(s) below the suggested answer.
• Review the search results below the answer (if you asked using the search bar) or click Search it to instantly perform a search using the keywords from your question (if you asked using the "Ask a question" button).
• Click Assign to forward your question to an expert. The assigned expert and all Guru admins can see Guru's suggested answer and any notes you add.

Setting Up Custom Prompts

Admins can replace the default prompt for answers with tailored instructions to fit their organization’s needs. This feature gives Admins control over content creation, ensuring that the tone, content, and structure align with the company’s branding and requirements.

1. Navigate to Manage > Workspace Preferences.
2. Under the Enable Answers widget, select Customize Prompt.
3. Update the default prompt to fit your needs. For example the below prompt will result in the robust answer seen below.
   1. “Create a robust, highly detailed, informative answer for a given question based solely on the given documents. Detect the language of the question and respond in the same language. Do not repeat text. Provide a long and detailed answer and avoid summarizing whenever possible. If there are steps listed in the documentation, list the steps as they are formatted in the documentation."

Frequently Asked Questions about Answers

Can my workspace use Answers without creating Guru Cards?
Yes! Guru can generate suggested answers out of content hosted in other web apps. See Linking sources for Answers in Guru for more information. Sources are configured by the customer and always visible alongside Guru's suggested answer. Guru leverages LLMs to better understand the question the user is asking, as well as to formulate the sources found by Answers into a clear and concise response, however, Guru does not source suggested answers from a LLM.

Can Answers reference information found in files, images, and videos uploaded to or embedded in the Guru Card?
At this time, Answers will only be pulled from the title and text content of a Guru Card, as well as from content from connected sources. This includes any Markdown content such as code snippets, bulleted lists, and numbered lists. This does not include uploaded and embedded files, images, and videos.

 
What externally-hosted file types will Guru create suggested answers from?

• PDFs
• Word (and open source equivalents)
• PowerPoint (and open-source equivalents)
• Excel (and open-source equivalents)
• Plain text files (.txt)
• PNGs
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Postscript

How quickly will it take for suggested answers to be generated in a new Guru workspace? Or when content is updated or deleted in the workspace?
If the Guru workspace contains Cards, you can begin using Answers right away. If you're linking or syncing a source (Google Drive, Salesforce, Confluence, or Zendesk) the timing varies and could be upwards of 24 hours. Guru syncs with your file storage locations looking for edits and new files periodically throughout the day, this process can take 3-6 hours depending on the file storage application and the amount of data you're syncing. Put simply, changes and edits to documents in a synced application can take 3-6 hours. It's important to note that syncing for deleted content takes considerably longer, and can take up to 3 days. If there's a deleted file you need to remove Answers' access to immediately, we recommend deleting the sync entirely and reading it while we aim to speed up the deletion sync process.

Can I control which users have access to Answers?
Currently, Answers is managed at the workspace level. All users can ask Guru a question and receive a suggested answer using the web app, extension, and Slack when enabled. When connecting external sources, the admin defines the Guru Group that will have access to the specified source. Workspace admin can see all questions asked and suggested answers given. Users without a Guru license will not receive suggested answers in Slack.

How do I know the answer generated is accurate?
We view the accuracy of knowledge as critical to any knowledge management initiative and have designed this into our product since the beginning of Guru. Our verification system is a critical workflow that connects documented company knowledge with experts within the company to ensure that information is accurate and does not go stale over time. Answers leverages this verified knowledge when providing answers to questions and includes clear sources of exactly what information was used to answer a question. We encourage all users to check their source files before sharing information, just like they would with a traditional search experience.

How do I know if my team receives adequate answers to their questions? Can I help resolve my team's unanswered or flagged questions?
As a workspace admin, you should encourage your team to use the AI Training Center to review questions and train Guru so that future suggestions are accurate. This dashboard lists the last 90 days of user questions and answers alongside the sources their answer was pulled from. From this dashboard, you can reassign flagged questions to be answered by a subject matter expert on your team. You can also follow up with the team members who are submitting general and vague questions to coach them on how to phrase their questions to lead them to better outcomes.

Why did Guru generate an answer that doesn't seem right? 
Guru does not source answers from a LLM; Answers are generated based on the question you ask and the Cards you have permission to. Although we have intentionally designed Answers to reduce the likelihood of hallucinations, there is still a small chance that hallucinations will occur. In addition, there's currently no weighting difference between verified and unverified Cards. This underscores the importance of verifying the accuracy of the content generated by Answers and reviewing the Sources cited. Users should click the Flag Answer thumbs-down icon ("👎")  to share feedback with their workspace admins.

Even if the suggested answer isn't accurate, you are reaching sources and finding information faster than a traditional search experience. Asking questions in your natural language allows you to express your needs quickly and more intuitively, reducing the effort it takes to ask a question. You don't need to have precise knowledge of search syntax or specific keywords. This results in reduced search time and fewer search iterations, thereby increasing your efficiency.

Is Answers integrated with Guru analytics dashboards?    
Yes! Visibility of the Answers analytics dashboard is limited to the admin user role. Take a look at our Evaluating Answers analytics and the AI Training Center articles.