Use Knowledge Base in Acrobat

Use Knowledge Base in Acrobat to organize related source content into collections, then ask questions about that content using the AI Assistant. Your chats are saved automatically, so you can pick up where you left off.

Understand the main areas

The main navigation provides access to the primary areas of Knowledge Base:

Work with collections

A collection is a curated set of documents that form a domain of knowledge used as a source for Gen AI queries.

Use collections to group related source content for a subject, project, or business domain. Depending on your permissions, you can create and manage collections, add source content, and share access with other people in your organization.

See the Collections overview.

Use the AI Assistant

Use the AI Assistant to ask questions in natural language and get answers grounded in the sources you choose — instead of manually searching through files or piecing information together yourself.

Choose a source for your chat. Before you ask a question, select what the AI Assistant should draw from:

• Collections — Query a curated set of documents you or your organization have already organized around a subject, project, or business domain.
• Individual files — Ask questions about one or more specific documents without adding them to a collection first.
• AI knowledge — Get a general-purpose response based on the AI's own knowledge, without grounding it in any of your organization's documents.
• The web — Get answers based on current information from the web, rather than your internal sources.

Only one source type is active per chat, so pick the option that matches what you're trying to find before you start asking questions.

Ask your question. Type a question the way you'd ask a colleague — the AI Assistant interprets natural language, so there's no need to use specific keywords or search syntax.

Review the response and its citations. Every response grounded in a collection, file, or the web includes citations back to the exact content that supports it, so you can verify the answer rather than take it on faith.

• Selecting a citation from a collection or file opens the source document and highlights the specific passage the response is based on.
• Selecting a web citation opens the source page in a new browser tab.

See Use the AI Assistant.

Find and continue chats

Chats are saved automatically and remain private to you.

Use Home to resume recent work or open Chats to search for a conversation, continue it, rename it, or delete it.

See Find and manage chats.

Share and collaborate

You can share a collection with other people in your organization and assign view or edit access. Depending on the sharing option, access can be limited to invited people or extended across the organization.

You can also configure a collection for supported Slack or Microsoft Teams channels. An administrator must first enable and set up the corresponding integration before users can connect collections to those channels.

When a collection is connected to a channel, its alias and access settings determine how channel members reference and use it.

See Share a collection

How the workflow fits together

A typical workflow looks like this:

1. Add and organize source content in a collection. Connect the documents, files, or repositories relevant to your subject, project, or business domain, and group them into a collection so they're ready to query as a single, focused knowledge source.
2. Select the sources you want to use. Before you start a chat, choose whether the AI Assistant should draw from a collection, individual files, its own general knowledge, or the web — whichever matches what you're trying to find.
3. Ask questions in the AI Assistant. Type your question in natural language, the way you'd ask a colleague. The AI Assistant searches your selected source and generates a response grounded in that content.
4. Review citations when you need to verify a response. Click a citation to jump straight to the exact passage or page that supports the answer, so you can confirm accuracy before relying on it or sharing it with others.
5. Return to the saved chat when you want to continue. Your chats are saved automatically, so you can pick up the same conversation later instead of re-explaining context or starting from scratch.

Best practices

• Keep collections focused on a clear subject, project, or business domain.
• Use clear collection names and descriptions so others can understand the purpose of the content.
• Select only the sources needed for the current chat.
• Review citations when accuracy or source verification matters.
• Return to an existing chat when continuing the same line of work instead of starting over.
• Share collections only with people who need access.

Things to know

• Your available collection actions depend on your permissions.
• Only one source type is active in a chat at a time.
• Chats are saved automatically.
• Collection citations open the source document and highlight the cited content.
• Web citations open the source page in a new browser tab.