When to use this checklist
- A website chatbot, AI assistant, agency, or staff member is drafting customer-facing answers from internal docs.
- FAQs, service pages, policy pages, and support scripts disagree with old SOPs or notes.
- AI search tools may quote answers that depend on pricing, guarantees, eligibility, response times, service areas, or policies.
- You need an owner-approved source map before updating a page for Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, or classic SEO.
Copy/paste knowledge-base access card
Copy this into a spreadsheet, CRM note, Notion page, support wiki, or AI governance tracker before opening docs to an AI tool.
| Field | What to record | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Source name and link | Exact document, page, SOP, FAQ, policy, or help article. | Service warranty FAQ, updated 2026-05-18. |
| Approved use | What AI may use it for: draft FAQ, summarize policy, support reply, chatbot answer, service-page update. | Draft support answer only; no automatic sending. |
| Public/private level | Public, internal-safe, private/customer-specific, draft-only, legal/financial/regulated. | Internal-safe; contains no customer records. |
| Owner and reviewer | Named person who can approve wording and resolve conflicts. | Operations owner reviews pricing/policy claims. |
| Last reviewed date | Real date, not an AI guess. Add next review date. | Reviewed 2026-06-01; next review 2026-07-01. |
| Claims allowed | Specific facts the AI may repeat. | Business hours, standard response window, included services. |
| Claims blocked | Facts that require human review or must not be used. | Discounts, exact arrival times, legal advice, guaranteed results. |
| Conflict notes | Other pages or docs that disagree. | Old PDF says 24/7; website says after-hours callback only. |
| Safe wording | Approved customer-facing language based only on current sources. | After-hours requests are reviewed by the next available dispatcher. |
| Stop rule | When staff or AI must pause and ask a human. | Pause if answer mentions price, warranty, emergency availability, refund, or eligibility. |
Copy/paste staff instruction
Use only the approved source documents listed below. Do not use draft notes, customer-specific records, private Slack messages, old PDFs, unreviewed SOPs, or memory from prior chats.
Allowed sources:
- [Document name + URL + owner + last reviewed date]
- [Document name + URL + owner + last reviewed date]
Blocked topics without owner review:
- prices, discounts, financing, refunds, guarantees, warranties, emergency response, legal/medical/financial advice, service-area fit, customer-specific history, reviews, ratings, or exact availability.
If a source is missing, conflicting, private, stale, or unclear, write: NEEDS OWNER REVIEW and list the missing source. Do not invent the answer.AI audit prompt
You are helping a small business audit which knowledge-base documents can be used for AI search, website FAQs, chatbot answers, and support replies. Use only the source list provided. Do not invent document dates, owners, permissions, policies, prices, guarantees, response times, customer outcomes, or legal conclusions. Return: (1) approved sources, (2) blocked/private/draft sources, (3) conflicting sources to resolve, (4) risky claims needing owner review, (5) safe customer-facing wording options, and (6) a stop-rule checklist for staff.
Small-business workflow
- List the source documents AI may see before connecting any tool.
- Remove or mask private customer notes, employee records, contracts, payment details, and draft legal/policy language.
- Assign one owner for price, policy, warranty, service-area, and guarantee claims.
- Test the AI with five realistic buyer/support questions and check every answer against the approved source card.
- Publish only after a human verifies the final wording, links, schema/FAQ markup, and support script.
Mistakes to avoid
- Letting AI pull from every document in Drive, Slack, Notion, or the CRM without source boundaries.
- Using old SOPs or PDFs as if they were current policy.
- Allowing AI to answer pricing, guarantee, warranty, emergency, or refund questions from memory.
- Publishing FAQ/schema answers that staff scripts cannot support.
- Forgetting to re-review source access after a tool, vendor, or staff-role change.
Turn safer sources into better AI-search pages
Pair this with the AI Search Entity Fact Sheet, citation conflict log, and AI tool data boundary worksheet.
For the full website and answer-engine implementation system, see SEO After AI. For internal workflow guardrails, use The Small Business AI Profit Kit.