Let's be honest, your company's knowledge is probably all over the place. You have your official help center, sure, but the answers that actually solve problems are often buried in internal wikis, random Google Docs, and thousands of old support tickets. The big dream for AI is to finally connect all those dots and give customers and agents the right answer, right away.
Front has dipped its toes into this by letting its AI connect to external knowledge. It’s a start, but if you’ve tried it, you might have already bumped into a few limitations.
This guide will give you a straight-up look at how Front AI External Knowledge Sources work. We’ll cover the setup, dig into the major limitations you should know about, and show you a more powerful way to give your AI a complete picture of your company’s knowledge.
What are Front AI external knowledge sources?
Front’s AI tools, like AI Answers and Copilot, can pull information from outside the Front app to create responses. So, instead of only using macros or content written inside Front, the AI can tap into your existing public help docs.
The idea is simple: you give Front a public URL (usually your help center), and it sends a web crawler to read and index the content on that page and any pages linked from it. The goal is to let your chatbot and agent-assist tools answer questions using the documentation you’ve already spent time writing.
It’s a direct approach meant to get your public knowledge into the AI’s hands. You can check out the official rundown in the Front Help Center if you want the basic feature overview.
How to set up Front AI external knowledge sources
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, it helps to see how the setup actually works. This isn’t a full tutorial, but more of a look at the process and the rules you have to follow. Understanding this will make the limitations we talk about next much clearer.
The syncing process
To get your knowledge into Front, you start by giving it one or more public URLs from a single domain. Once you do, Front's crawler starts syncing up to 3,000 pages of content.
Here’s the catch: it’s a totally manual process. If you update an article, add a new one, or remove something, the AI won't know about the change until you go back into the settings and hit "re-sync." This might not sound like a huge deal, but for teams that are constantly updating docs, it becomes a nagging chore and introduces a real risk of the AI giving out old information.
Content rules and restrictions
Front is also pretty picky about what kind of content it can use. Your knowledge source has to fit a specific mold, or the crawler will just skip over it.
It has to be public. Your content can't be behind a login or password. If a customer needs an account to see it, Front's AI can't see it either.
It needs a simple layout. The pages have to be compatible with a browser's "reader mode." This means complicated designs, interactive bits, or pages that hide content behind clicks often won't work.
It must be text-focused. The crawler is looking for words. Pages with less than 100 words or those that are mostly images and diagrams will probably be ignored.
No outside links or files. Front’s crawler won’t follow links to other websites, and it won’t index files like PDFs, even if they're linked from your help center. The information has to be plain text on a page under the same domain you started with.
The key limitations
Connecting a help center is a nice first step, but the reality of customer support is way more complicated. Front's rigid approach creates some major roadblocks for teams who need a truly effective AI.
Limited to public websites
The biggest issue is that Front only works with public URLs. But where does your team's most valuable, detailed knowledge actually live? It’s probably in private, internal spots. Think about your step-by-step troubleshooting guides in Confluence, project briefs in Google Docs, product updates in Notion, or all the quick fixes shared in Slack.
Front completely ignores this massive pool of internal context. This means your AI can only answer a small slice of customer questions, leaving your agents to handle anything that requires digging up info internally. An AI built for modern support should be able to securely connect to both public and private knowledge to create one unified brain for your team.
An infographic showing how eesel AI connects to multiple private and public knowledge sources, a key limitation of Front AI External Knowledge Sources.Can't learn from past tickets
Think about it: the best, most specific solutions your team has ever given are sitting in your resolved tickets. They hold the battle-tested answers that have already solved real customer problems. They capture your brand's unique voice and show exactly how your best agents handle tricky situations.
Front's AI can't learn from any of this. It's a huge missed opportunity. Because it can't access your support history, its answers can feel generic and lack the context that makes your support team so great.
This is where a tool like eesel AI really makes a difference. eesel AI is built to train directly on your past helpdesk conversations from platforms like Zendesk or Intercom. From day one, it starts learning your business, your tone, and the solutions that actually work, all without you having to write a single new doc.
No way to test or control
With Front, you just point the crawler at a URL and hope for the best. There's no way to see how the AI will actually perform on real customer questions before you flip the switch. You can't check how it would have answered last week's tickets or get a forecast of its potential resolution rate.
That makes rolling out the AI a big leap of faith. You're basically testing it on live customers, which is a risky move for your brand. It’s tough to know where its knowledge gaps are or what kind of impact it'll have until it's already talking to people.
Compare that to the simulation engine in eesel AI. You can test your AI on thousands of your own past tickets in a safe sandbox environment. You can review every single answer it suggests, tweak its logic, and get accurate, data-backed forecasts on resolution rates and cost savings before a single customer ever interacts with it.
The eesel AI simulation engine, which allows testing on past tickets, overcoming a major limitation of Front AI External Knowledge Sources.Manual updates and security problems
The manual re-syncing isn't just a hassle; it’s a recipe for giving customers outdated info. It depends on someone remembering to click a button every time a doc gets updated. Even worse, the requirement to make all knowledge public just doesn't work for most companies. You shouldn't have to expose sensitive company info just to get your AI working.
This forces you into a tough spot: settle for a limited AI or compromise on data security. A platform like eesel AI helps you avoid this choice altogether. It connects to your knowledge sources with secure, direct integrations and keeps everything in sync automatically. Your AI is always up-to-date, and your private documents stay private.
eesel AI: A better alternative
Front's external knowledge sources are a bit of a closed box. On the flip side, eesel AI is a flexible platform designed to connect to all of your knowledge, not just the small part that lives on a public website. The best part? It works right alongside your current helpdesk, so you don't have to rip out a tool like Front that your team already knows how to use.
| Feature | Front AI External Knowledge Sources | eesel AI |
|---|---|---|
| Supported Sources | Public URLs from one domain only | 100+ integrations like private docs (Confluence, Google Docs), past tickets, Slack, etc. |
| Learning from Tickets | No, can't train on past conversations | Yes, learns your tone and solutions from old tickets automatically. |
| Content Syncing | Manual, requires an admin to trigger | Automatic and continuous, keeping the AI current. |
| Security | Requires content to be made public | Connects securely to private sources via direct integrations. |
| Testing & Simulation | Not available | Powerful simulation mode to test on your tickets before going live. |
| Setup Time | Simple for basic URLs | Live in minutes with one-click integrations, no sales call needed. |
With eesel AI, you can finally build an AI that knows the full story.
-
Bring your whole knowledge base together: Connect everything from internal wikis and Google Docs to your Shopify product catalog. This gives your AI the context to handle a much wider range of questions with real accuracy.
-
Go live with confidence: You don't have to automate everything on day one. With eesel AI's simulation and reporting, you can start small by automating just one or two simple ticket types. As you see the results and get more comfortable, you can gradually let the AI handle more.
-
Stay in complete control: You're in charge. Use the simple prompt editor to define the AI's personality, tone, and exactly what it should and shouldn't answer. You can create rules to make sure it never goes off-script and always passes complex issues to a human.
A view of the eesel AI platform connecting to multiple knowledge sources, unlike the more limited Front AI External Knowledge Sources.Pricing comparison
Pricing is another spot where the two approaches are quite different. Front's AI features come as an add-on to their Growth plan (starting at $149/user/month) or are included in their Premier plan ($229/user/month). This per-agent pricing can get pricey, especially as your team grows.
eesel AI's pricing is a lot more straightforward.
-
Plans are based on usage (how many AI interactions you have per month), not on how many agents are on your team. This means the cost scales with the value you get, not your headcount.
-
There are no per-resolution fees. You're never penalized when the AI does its job well. A busy month won't hit you with a surprise bill.
-
You can choose month-to-month plans, so you can get started without being locked into a long-term contract.
A screenshot of the transparent, usage-based eesel AI pricing page, which contrasts with the per-agent pricing model for Front AI External Knowledge Sources.Moving beyond the basics
While Front's ability to connect to a website is a decent feature, its limitations are pretty serious. Being stuck with public URLs, the manual syncing, and the inability to test anything make it a tough tool for any team that needs a reliable, secure, and truly helpful AI.
To get real value from support automation, you need an AI that can learn from all your company's knowledge, not just your help center. You need a platform that’s secure, syncs automatically, and lets you test everything before it ever talks to a customer.
Your next steps
If the limitations of Front's system are holding you back, it's probably time to look at a platform built for deep integration, full control, and a confident launch.
Sign up for a free eesel AI account to connect all your knowledge sources in just a few minutes and see what a truly unified AI support agent can do for your team.
Frequently asked questions
Front AI External Knowledge Sources are limited to public URLs from a single domain and can crawl up to 3,000 pages. They cannot access private documents, external links, or files like PDFs, which limits the breadth of knowledge they can gather.
Updating Front AI External Knowledge Sources is a manual process. If your documentation changes, an administrator must manually trigger a re-sync within Front's settings to ensure the AI has the most current information.
No, Front AI External Knowledge Sources are strictly limited to public-facing content accessible via a URL. They cannot securely connect to or index private internal documents, wikis, or project briefs that are behind a login.
Unfortunately, Front AI External Knowledge Sources do not learn from your past support tickets or helpdesk conversations. This means the AI cannot draw on the specific, battle-tested solutions and tone captured in your support history.
Front does not offer a simulation or testing environment for its Front AI External Knowledge Sources. You cannot preview how the AI will answer questions or assess its accuracy on past tickets before it starts interacting with live customers.
Front AI External Knowledge Sources require content to be public, text-focused, and have a simple layout compatible with a browser's "reader mode." They will not index pages with less than 100 words, complex designs, or non-text files like PDFs.
Content for Front AI External Knowledge Sources must be public, text-focused, and easily readable by a web crawler (like in "reader mode"). It cannot be behind a login, mostly images, or include links to external domains or file types like PDFs.
