One answer layer over internal systems (L3)
Employees stop guessing which system holds the answer. A retrieval layer indexes the docs, tickets, and wikis people are allowed to see and answers with citations and permissions respected.
The steps
- 01
Inherit permissions, do not rebuild them
Tool: Glean
The answer layer must respect source system permissions per user. Any design that flattens access is a data leak with a friendly interface. Owner: IT plus security. DoD: permission tests pass for three user personas.
- 02
Index a narrow, high value set first
Tool: Notion
Start with policies, product docs, and onboarding. Indexing everything on day one imports every stale document you own. Pitfall: boiling the ocean and getting confident wrong answers. DoD: first index scope is documented and deliberately small.
- 03
Answer with citations only
Tool: Slack
Every answer links its sources. If retrieval is empty, the layer says so and routes to an owner. Owner: IT. DoD: verified refusal behaviour on ten gap questions.
- 04
Review the unanswered log
Tool: Manual
Unanswered questions are a documentation backlog and an access problem list. Review weekly and assign owners. Owner: ops lead. DoD: weekly review with owners assigned.
Tools in this playbook
Next playbooks
Unfamiliar terms are defined in the AI and Revenue Dictionary. Related frameworks live in the framework library.