Large organizations can no longer ignore AI. Especially within the customer domain, AI is rapidly changing work processes. TKC Digital also sees these changes and advises companies to adopt an AI-first strategy. In an interview, CEO Tinky Bart explains the essence of this strategy, but also that good knowledge management remains crucial:
"As an organization, you really shouldn’t be afraid of AI anymore."

What is an AI-first strategy and why do we at TKC Digital recommend this approach?

"With an AI-first strategy, you primarily structure your knowledge for agentic AI. In our view, AI is not a byproduct that improves your customer service, but it plays a central role in distributing and managing knowledge. The basic principle remains that you still want to give your customers and employees the right answer in one go. To that, the automation of tasks through visible and invisible AI agents is added.

Most organizations currently use a digital strategy for those tasks: handling as much customer contact as possible through online self-service. But the development of generative and agentic AI is going extremely fast, and that brings other applications, such as customer-facing AI. In fact, the target audience of knowledge management is changing. We advise anticipating this change — with a renewed strategy based on a central role for AI."

Why does AI-first go hand in hand with good knowledge management?

"A fool with a tool is still a fool."
If you don’t really know what you want with AI — or you do, but your data is not in order — should you really use it then? You need to lay the foundation properly. For that, you first have to take a step back and look at what you have. What needs to be in place to make AI work?

We often hear: “We’re testing AI on its technical functionality.” The technology then works well, and it feels like you can feed everything into the system. But what’s really needed is a content check, and that’s where knowledge management is indispensable. Because garbage in = garbage out, and you might not even notice. AI will come up with a response anyway based on your input.

If you want to prepare your knowledge organization for AI, it has to return in every step of your knowledge strategy. You need control over the process, the information, and the technology. In the customer domain, there is a certain urgency regarding AI usage: “We have to go there, and fast!” But you’ll still miss the boat if you don’t think about that control. It should not become a goal in itself.

How can organizations structure their knowledge AI-first?

At TKC, we use a methodology for knowledge management — a step-by-step plan to manage and improve knowledge. This method has proven to be effective for years. To make knowledge ready for AI, we have adapted our methodology. A good starting strategy remains the most important — especially for AI implementation.

At the very least, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is our desired end result regarding AI?

• What objectives are linked to this end result?

• What do we need to achieve those objectives?

• Reflect on your current knowledge setup: what do we have now, and what direction should it go in to implement AI successfully?

Developments are going fast. We can’t close our eyes to this. If you start experimenting with AI now with a half-baked plan, it’s a waste for your organization. Make AI the central pillar of a new knowledge strategy from the beginning. You can use AI to improve the findability of your knowledge base. But you can also already use AI to manage your content and take work off the hands of content specialists. There’s a world of difference between those, and it requires a different plan.

The foundation of our vision on knowledge management remains intact in the AI-first strategy. After all, you're aiming for the highest quality of your information. It has to be accurate, usable, findable, and consistent. The target group for your content does change. You’re writing and structuring articles to allow systems to generate the best possible output. The review process of your articles and the output gets a key role. Because AI output shows the error sensitivity of your content.

How does an AI-first strategy relate to the use and understanding of the technology?

We emphasize the importance of good technology for AI-first. We provide targeted advice on the best technology available on the market and know what we’re talking about in this area. That advice is mainly focused on the implementation of content and performing a content carwash. But we also look at tools that really take over tasks like customer contact and knowledge management from the employee. In that technology, AI is even more central. Your content then needs to match that.

Every chain is connected. In our view, results are often lacking because the right vision for AI usage is missing. That concern is best addressed by linking the course of your knowledge organization to AI usage right from the start. Even if you start cautiously and on a small scale with the technology.

What does the new strategy mean for role distribution in the AI-first organization?

Everyone has to be on the same page from the beginning — including all employees. Every member of the knowledge organization must be able to think from the new strategy. There are also new skills needed in the knowledge chain. For those new skills, this question is important:
What role does my content play, and how does AI interact with the content?
That’s where prompt management becomes important. How do you feed AI as effectively as possible? That task is quite new, and you need your best content specialists for it.

In addition, designing the customer journey and data analysis becomes even more important. This creates the new role of journey analyst. This person mainly deals with translating knowledge into the right interaction between AI, customer, and employee. That analysis is crucial for a successful and broadly supported AI strategy. What is clear is that the human in the loop, when measuring and improving the knowledge, is indispensable. It is a utopia to think AI will automatically do its job.

Final conclusion

Without good knowledge management, there is no solid AI strategy. Your knowledge must be in order. At TKC, we’ve been laying that foundation for 17 years with clients, for example through our content carwash. We’re proud of that. We see that our approach remains important with the arrival of AI. But it is changing. Your vision on knowledge, digitization, and channel strategy must be AI-proof.
With an AI-first view on knowledge management, you are ready to benefit from the advantages of AI.
See it as an opportunity — not as a barrier. Fear of AI must become a thing of the past.