Your community's AI assistant (AI Copilot) can answer members' questions from community posts, not just from your knowledge base. Use Admin → AI Copilot → Community Content to turn this on, choose which spaces the assistant searches, and give important spaces more weight.
Who can do this: Owners and admins. · Where: Web (admin console). The settings also apply to the AI assistant in the Mateflow app. · Plan: Requires a platform plan that includes AI Copilot.
Turn on community content for the AI assistant
Community content (sometimes called community retrieval) lets the AI assistant search posts in your spaces when it answers. It's separate from the knowledge base: posts aren't copied into the knowledge base.
- Go to Admin → AI Copilot → Community Content. The page is called Community Content for AI.
- Turn on Enable Community Content. The space settings below the switch appear.
- Click Save.
While community content is on, members can choose Community or Hybrid (knowledge base and community) in the AI chat's Source Scope menu. When you turn it off, those choices disappear and the AI assistant answers only from your knowledge base. To choose the scope that new chats start with, see Set up your community's AI assistant.
Choose which spaces the AI assistant can search
Under Space Scope, pick one option:
- All Spaces: the AI assistant searches every space it can use.
- Whitelist: it searches only the spaces you add under Included Spaces (an allow list).
- Blacklist: it searches every space except the ones you add under Excluded Spaces (a block list).
For Whitelist or Blacklist, search for spaces, tick them, and click Save. You need at least one space; otherwise you'll see Select at least one space for the chosen scope. Switching to a different option clears the spaces you picked.
The space lists only show Feed Spaces, Article Spaces, and Q&A Spaces, because those are the only space types the AI assistant searches.
Content the AI assistant never searches
Some community content is always left out, whatever you choose under Space Scope:
- Chat Spaces, Gallery Spaces, Radio Spaces (podcasts), and Course Spaces, including course lessons.
- Event posts.
- Comments and replies, except answers in Q&A Spaces.
- Drafts, scheduled posts, posts waiting for approval, and hidden or deleted posts.
- Posts in archived spaces.
To give the AI assistant material that lives in excluded places, such as course content, add it to the knowledge base instead. See Add knowledge sources for your AI assistant.
What members can see in AI answers: private spaces and permissions
The AI assistant respects space permissions. It answers each member only from community posts that member can already open:
- Public spaces can be used for every signed-in member.
- Private and Secret spaces are used only for members of that space. Their posts never appear in a non-member's answer or under Sources.
- Adding a Private space to the Whitelist doesn't open it to everyone. It only lets that space's own members get answers from it.
- Guests can't use the AI assistant.
Each answer lists its Sources, so members can open the original post. If nothing the member can see matches the question, they see No Accessible Content. Knowledge base content works differently: it isn't limited by space membership. See AI data privacy and limitations.
Give important spaces more weight with Priority Spaces
Priority Spaces boosts the relevance score of posts from spaces you choose, such as an announcements or official guides space, so the AI assistant prefers them.
- Under Priority Spaces, tick the spaces to boost.
- Choose a Score boost: from 1.2x to 3.0x. 1.5x is marked (recommended).
- Click Save.
Priority spaces must fit your Space Scope. With Whitelist, you can only pick spaces on the whitelist; until you add some, you'll see Add spaces to the whitelist above first — priority spaces must be part of it. With Blacklist, excluded spaces aren't offered. Boosting a space never makes the AI assistant search it for members who can't see it.
Advanced retrieval parameters for community posts
Advanced Retrieval Parameters is collapsed by default. Leave the defaults unless answers keep missing good posts or citing weak ones.
- Default Top K: how many community posts the AI assistant retrieves and ranks for each question, from 1 to 20.
- Score Threshold: community posts scoring below this value are dropped. It only filters community posts. It doesn't affect the knowledge base or make the AI assistant decline to answer.
Troubleshooting community content
Symptom: Members don't see Community or Hybrid in Source Scope. Why it happens: Enable Community Content is off, or the change wasn't saved. Fix: turn it on and click Save.
Symptom: A Migration Notice says your community has Space-type Knowledge Sources that are now deprecated. Why it happens: older versions added spaces as knowledge sources; community content is now managed under Admin → AI Copilot → Community Content. Fix: add your important spaces as Priority Spaces, then delete the old Space sources from Admin → AI Copilot → Knowledge Base.
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