Short answer: if employees mostly ask "where is X" or "what does our policy say," a docs Q&A bot in Slack is enough. If they also need the exact steps for their own request, and some of those requests end with a ticket for IT, pick an AI agent that answers from your docs and can also act in your ticketing tool. Runbear can do both jobs from one agent in Slack or Microsoft Teams.
Editor's note: Runbear publishes this blog, and Runbear is one of the products discussed. Third-party product details are as of November 2026.
In this post, a docs Q&A bot is a tool whose main job is finding the passage in your wiki, handbook, or help center that answers a question. An IT help desk AI agent starts from the same documents, then helps the employee act on the answer, for example by opening a ticket.
Two kinds of AI bot for company knowledge in Slack
Docs Q&A bots and AI search
These find the answer in documents you already have. Guru's Slack integration is one example: when someone asks a question in an enabled channel, Guru's Knowledge Agent responds in the thread (Guru). Slack's own enterprise search is another: it makes conversations, data, and connected third-party apps searchable from one AI-powered search bar (Slack).
IT help desk AI agents
These answer from the same kind of documents, and they can also call the tools your IT team works in. Runbear is in this group. Its docs describe the split directly: a knowledge base is documents synced from your tools and searched when someone asks ("What's our vacation policy?"), while a tool is a live API call that can look something up or take an action ("Create a ticket for this bug") (Runbear docs). Most help desk agents need both.
Side by side
| Docs Q&A bot or AI search | IT help desk AI agent (Runbear) | |
| Where it answers | A Slack thread in an enabled channel (Guru), or a search bar (Slack enterprise search, Enterprise+ plans) | The Slack or Teams thread where someone @mentions the agent, or a DM, plus any extra channel triggers you turn on |
| What it reads | The documents or apps you connect | Knowledge sources such as Notion, Confluence, Google Drive, SharePoint, Slack channels, websites, and uploaded files |
| What it can do after answering | Point to the source | Call connected tools, for example search, create, or comment on Jira tickets |
| Whose access it uses | Limited to what each user can see (Guru, Slack enterprise search) | Per tool: each member's own account (Per-User) or one shared account (Shared) |
Example 1: a question a docs Q&A bot handles well
A docs Q&A bot is the simpler choice when most questions are "where do I find X" rather than "please help me with my own request." Holiday dates, the expense policy, where the brand guidelines live. Nothing needs to happen after the answer, so the bot never needs your ticketing tool or admin systems.
Runbear handles this job too. You add the handbook as a knowledge source, and the agent answers from it in the thread where the employee asked. If answering from documents is the whole job, either kind of tool will do, and the deciding factor is usually price and how your documents are organized.
Example 2: a request that needs an agent
An agent fits when employees need help with their own case and a link will not settle it. In the example above, the employee asks how to reset MFA after a phone change. The agent replies with the steps from the team's MFA runbook. When the employee says they are locked out of both methods, the agent creates a ticket in Jira, which the Jira tool supports (search issues, create tickets, add comments) (Runbear docs).
Your own runbook decides what the steps say. The agent does not invent an MFA procedure; it reads the one you keep in Confluence, Notion, or Google Drive.
How the setup works in Runbear
- Add knowledge sources. On the agent's Knowledge tab, connect the source that holds your runbooks and policies and pick the pages, folders, or channels to sync. Runbear indexes them and keeps them current with incremental syncs. It is a synced copy, not a live read, so a page edited a minute ago may not be in the answer yet (Runbear docs).
- Add the tools that take action. Connect Jira (or another ticketing tool) as a tool and, where the tool offers the choice, pick Per-User or Shared (Runbear docs).
- Add the agent to your help channel. In Slack, the agent always replies to @mentions and DMs. Per channel you can also turn on Reply without @mention (it replies to every new message, which is noisy in a busy channel) or Trigger by keyword (Runbear docs).
What each person can see
Guru and Slack enterprise search both limit answers to what each user is allowed to see (Guru, Slack). In Runbear the answer depends on where the information comes from:
- Tools set to Per-User run with the account of the employee who asked. Each member links their own account, so a Jira action runs with that employee's own account and permissions, and it can only reach what that account can reach (Runbear docs).
- Tools set to Shared use one account for everyone on the agent. Simpler, but everyone gets that account's access.
- Knowledge sources such as Notion, Confluence, SharePoint, and Google Drive are connected through the account of the member who set them up and synced into the agent's index, so treat everything you sync as content the agent can draw on when answering. Keep restricted documents out of the knowledge base, or put them on a separate agent.
How to choose
Choose a docs Q&A bot or AI search if:
- most questions can be answered by pointing to a page
- your knowledge already lives in one tool you are happy with
- IT requests are rare enough to handle by hand
Choose an IT help desk AI agent like Runbear if:
- many questions are repeat requests such as MFA resets, VPN setup, or access requests
- employees need step-by-step help with their own request, not only a page to read
- some requests should end with a ticket, created in the thread instead of a separate form
- you want the same agent in Slack and Microsoft Teams
FAQ
Can one agent answer policy questions and handle IT requests?
Yes. Connect knowledge sources for the documents and tools for the actions on the same agent. Runbear's docs recommend both for most agents (Runbear docs).
Does Runbear read every message in the help channel?
Not by default. It replies when someone @mentions it or sends it a DM. If you turn on Reply without @mention for a channel, it replies to every new message there (Runbear docs).
Does a new runbook page show up right away?
After the next sync. Knowledge sources are synced and indexed, then updated incrementally, so they are not read live (Runbear docs).
Which knowledge sources does Runbear support?
Notion, Confluence, Google Drive, Slack channels, SharePoint, public websites, and uploaded files (Runbear docs).
Related reading
- Runbear for IT help desks
- How to build a knowledge base chatbot inside Slack
- Per-user authentication for AI agents
- Best AI agents for Slack
