What to give an AI employee before its first task: the twelve documents and the catalogue

Mar 18, 2026 · 7 min read · Updated September 15, 2026

An AI employee answers from two things: a knowledge base of twelve documents built from your materials, and a catalogue table for products and prices. Upload a website, files or a Google Sheet and the platform sorts the facts into both. Here is what each document does, what to feed the pipeline, and how to tell when the materials are ready.

The first question a new employee is asked is usually a price, and the first mistake it makes is usually a price. The instruction cannot prevent that, because the instruction is about behaviour. Prices, conditions, delivery times and the name of the product come from the materials, and the materials are the part most companies hand over last.

The platform takes materials in three forms: a website address, files, and a link to a Google Sheet. It parses PDF, Word, Excel and CSV files, reads the sheet through its export link, and crawls the site. What comes out is not a pile of text but two structured things the employee reads differently.

The knowledge base: twelve documents

The pipeline extracts typed facts from everything you upload, company facts, buyer segments, sales policy, tone, and routes each by type into one of twelve markdown documents. The employee gets them as titled sections of its context, with a rule to treat them as orientation about who the company is and how it sells, not as a price list.

DocumentWhat it answersWhere the facts usually come from
Company profileWho you are, what you sell, whereThe site's about page, a company description
Buyer profilesWho buys and why, per segmentSales notes, the qualification step uses this one
PlaybooksHow a conversation should go for each kind of requestScripts, training notes, good threads
OffersWhat is on offer and on what termsPrice lists, commercial proposals
ObjectionsWhat customers push back on and what to saySales notes, real threads
Tone of voiceHow the company soundsExamples of good replies
Pipeline rulesWhen a deal moves and who owns itCRM conventions, written down for the first time
SLAHow fast a reply and a callback should beInternal rules
Catalogue notesHow to talk about the product rangeThe site, the catalogue itself
GuidesAreas, locations, how-to materialSite pages, files
Legal notesWhat may and may not be promisedTerms, contracts
Case studiesProof to citeSite pages, files
Twelve documents, one per kind of fact. An employee reads the ones that are filled; an empty document is simply not there.

The catalogue: a table, not a document

Products, services, plans and prices do not go into the documents. They go into the catalogue: a table with rows and columns, search, filters and facets, importable from CSV and from a Google Sheet, and updatable through the API. When a customer asks whether there is anything under a certain price, the employee filters the table; it does not read a document and hope the number is current.

This is the one place where updating the material updates the answer with no other change. A new price in the sheet, a re-import, and the next reply quotes it. The catalogue is also what a voice employee searches during a live call, so it should hold what a caller asks about, not only what the website shows.

The catalogue's filters are the ones a product range needs: category, type, brand, currency, tag, location, availability, price range. A characteristic that is not a column is searchable as text but not filterable, so if customers filter by something, make it a column.

What to upload, in what order

The order matters less than the completeness, but this order avoids re-doing work.

  1. The website first. It fills the profile, the catalogue notes and the guides, and shows you which documents stay empty afterwards.
  2. The price list as a sheet or CSV, into the catalogue. Check that one column holds the price, one the currency, and that availability is a value, not a colour in the cell.
  3. Terms, return policy, delivery conditions as files. These feed legal notes, offers and SLA, and they are the documents customers test first.
  4. Five to ten real threads that went well. Tone of voice, objections and playbooks are built from these, and nothing else produces them.
  5. A written answer to the questions the site does not answer. Every company has three or four; write them down as a page and upload it.

How to tell the materials are ready

Ask the employee the ten questions your team hears most, in copilot mode, and read the drafts. Three outcomes are possible for each: the answer is right, the answer is missing, or the answer is invented. Right needs nothing. Missing means a document is empty or a row is absent; add it. Invented means the employee filled a gap from general knowledge, which the rules forbid it to do but which a thin knowledge base invites. The fix is the same as for missing: give it the fact.

One thing the pipeline does not do: it does not stay connected. An upload is a snapshot of that moment. When the price list changes, re-import it; when the site changes, run the site again. There is no schedule that refreshes a source for you, so put one in your own calendar.

Common questions

What formats can I upload as company materials?
A website address, PDF, Word, Excel and CSV files, and a link to a Google Sheet, which is read through its export link. The pipeline sorts the facts into the twelve knowledge documents and the catalogue.
Where do prices go: the knowledge base or the catalogue?
The catalogue. It is a table with search and filters, so the employee filters rows rather than reading a document. Update the sheet, re-import, and the next reply quotes the new price.
How many documents does the knowledge base have?
Twelve, one per kind of fact: company profile, buyer profiles, playbooks, offers, objections, tone of voice, pipeline rules, SLA, catalogue notes, guides, legal notes and case studies.
Does the employee re-read my website when it changes?
No. An upload is a snapshot. Re-run the site or re-import the sheet when the source changes; there is no automatic refresh schedule.
How do I check the materials are complete?
Ask the employee the ten most common customer questions in copilot mode and read the drafts. Missing and invented answers both mean a document or a catalogue row is absent; add the fact and ask again.

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