What knowledge Ask AI and Ari use and how to control access
Ask AI reads only published Help Center articles. Ari reads those articles plus any sitemap or URL knowledge sources you have added.
Knowledge sources
Sitemap and URL knowledge sources added in Settings, under Plain AI, then Knowledge Sources, are indexed for Ari, Suggested Responses and Sidekick only.
Publishing an article makes it available to Ari with no extra configuration, as long as AI access is enabled.
The AI access toggle is shared
The AI access setting in Help Center, under General, controls whether Ari, Suggested Responses and Sidekick can read your articles. It applies to all Plain AI features together, so you cannot give Ask AI access without also giving Ari access, and vice versa. For what happens to your data when these features are on, see How Plain handles your data when AI features are on.
Hiding articles from customers but not from AI
There is no per-article setting for this. The closest option is to set the Help Center access level to Your team only and enable AI access. Articles are then invisible to customers but readable by Ari and Suggested Responses. This blocks customers from the whole Help Center, including the customer inbox and Ask AI chat.
Disabling Ask AI or search
Disabling Plain AI for the workspace in Settings, under Plain AI, removes the Ask AI chat from your Help Center. There is no setting to hide only the Ask AI or search UI and keep the rest of the Help Center accessible.
Ask AI conversations are logged
Every Ask AI conversation is logged and visible to your team, even if the customer never escalates or creates a thread. Logging starts from the first message.