Fountain’s Candidate AI Agent, or CAI for short, is designed to assist job seekers with the application process and answer their questions to ensure they can complete their application smoothly. It is trained on your company's job Openings and can provide specific details about each position. Additionally, the AI agent can read job descriptions to answer related questions. It also has access to applicant information from your Fountain Hire workflows, enabling it to handle technical questions such as "How can I check my application status?" or "How do I reschedule an interview?" Learn how to set up and use Candidate AI by reviewing this article.

Accelerate Package Administrator Feature

Fountain's Candidate AI Agent is available as a premium feature. Please contact your Fountain Customer Success contact if you're interested in this feature. Additionally, this feature is only accessible to Admins on the account.

When setting up your AI agent, you’ll be asked to create a Knowledge Base as the final step. It is important to create a comprehensive and company-specific Knowledge Base so the AI agent is prepared to support your applicants. This Knowledge Base should include information beyond what's already included in your job descriptions, such as information related to your company culture, frequently asked questions, role specifics, and an overview of the application process. Like perfecting customer service interactions, developing this Knowledge Base requires ongoing adjustments and updates. Fountain recommends regularly updating and refining the Knowledge Base content based on feedback.

You will have the choice to create your Knowledge Base with help via an AI Assistant or by creating a manual CSV file. These steps will be discussed later in this article.

Important Note:

You cannot use legacy FAI with CAI.

Review the image below to understand where Fountain’s CAI knowledge is built from:

Knowledge Base Creation Steps

Review this article to learn all the steps to create an AI agent. This article will only focus on creating the Knowledge Base.

After completing steps 1 and 2 to create the agent, you will be presented with the option to create the Knowledge Base with help from an AI Assistant or Upload the Knowledge Base (create a CSV file manually). Fountain recommends using the AI Assistant to ensure a comprehensive Knowledge Base is created.

Create via the AI Assistant (Recommended)

To create with help from the AI Assistant, follow the steps below:

Complete all steps in the first two creation screens - Personalize AI Agent and Set AI Agent functionalities.
Click the Create a Knowledge Base with AI Assistant option.
Start a conversation with the AI Assistant which will guide you through a series of questions. These answers will be compiled into your Knowledge Base!
The first option presented will be to upload materials or create from scratch. You can upload any relevant company documents such as promotional posters, core value documentation, benefits packages, etc. The AI Assistant will read the documents you provide.
After the initial materials question, the AI Assistant will guide you through a series of topics. If you want to skip a topic, simply chat skip.
At any time, click the View Knowledge Base button at the top of the chat to view the in-progress Knowledge Base being created by the AI Assistant.
1. Click the pencil icon to edit what the AI Assistant has compiled or the trash icon to remove it.
2. Click + Add new topic to add a new topic manually.
This process can take some time so feel free to click Save as Draft to come back and finish later.
Once finished answering all questions, click Publish to finalize the AI Agent.

Tips!

Remember, at any time, click the View Knowledge Base button at the top of the chat to view the in-progress Knowledge Base being created by the AI Assistant.
You can also go back by simply asking to go back to a topic via the chat.
Do not hesitate to be conversational. Don’t worry about misspellings or grammar as the AI Assistant will be able to comprehend these types of mistakes.

Create via Manual CSV File

To create a CSV file manually, follow the steps below:

Complete all steps in the first two creation screens - Personalize AI Agent and Set AI Agent functionalities.
Click the Upload Knowledge Base option.
Click Template File to download the template.
This template includes four columns, Questions, Answers, Instructions to AI Agent (optional), and Tips, which will help you begin building your knowledge base spreadsheet.
1. Questions: Keep your questions more general. For example, rather than adding “What are the requirements for your Hiring Manager remote position”. Instead, use “What are the requirements for this position”. Remember, this is not a traditional FAQ for your company. By keeping the questions more general, your AI agent has the flexibility to answer questions based on all facets of its knowledge.
2. Answers: Enter clear, concise, accurate, and contextual responses to each question. Unlike the Questions column, here you’ll want to be more specific. Answers can be lengthy and can include sections or bullets. Review the best practices section below for tips on formatting. Remember, the AI agent is not responding word for word to what you type in this spreadsheet. It instead will learn from the spreadsheet and respond appropriately.
3. Additional Instructions: This column is optional but an additional place for you to provide more guidance for the AI agent. For example, if you only want the AI agent to send a link to your website if the applicant asks about additional driver roles and not package handler roles, you can add this information in the Additional Instructions column.
4. Tips: This column is also optional and is for internal use only. Use this to add context to other team members that may update the Knowledge Base later. The AI agent will not read this column.
Fountain has included two required questions that you must provide answers for. Read the tips column for help writing your answers. The two required questions are "Tell me about the company" and " Tell me about the different roles/positions".
Fountain has also included one recommended and three optional questions that Fountain suggests you provide answers for. These questions are "What's the application process like?" (recommended), "What does a day on the job look like?" (optional), "What are the opportunities for growth and career advancement?" (optional), and "What benefits and perks does the company offer?" (optional).
Add any additional questions and answers. Remember, the Instruction to AI Agent and Tips columns are optional.
Save your file to your computer.
Click Upload File.
Click Send.
Click Publish to finalize your AI agent.

Tips!

CSV files do not support rich formatting, so bold text and new paragraphs will not be saved. To ensure proper formatting, use periods to end sentences. For lists, use a colon (:) to indicate headers, and a dash (-) or numbers for bullet points. You can add line breaks for easier editing, but make sure to remove them before uploading the file, as CSV files do not handle line breaks and may not upload correctly.
Review all answers and questions from top to bottom to avoid conflicting information that might confuse the AI agent. Since the AI agent interprets information very literally, read through the content as if you have no prior context. Consider having a colleague from outside your department proofread to ensure clarity and eliminate any vagueness.
If the AI agent provides unexpected answers, review the Knowledge Base to identify any unclear or conflicting information.

Creation Best Practices

To build an effective, comprehensive, and company-specific AI agent, it is essential to invest thoughtful and intentional effort into developing your AI Knowledge Base. This Knowledge Base will serve as the ‘brain’ of your AI agent. Approach this process as you would when training a new employee, ensuring they gain a detailed understanding AND high-level, broad knowledge about your jobs and your company. When a candidate asks a question, your AI agent will read the entire Knowledge Base and respond from a big-picture perspective. For this reason, it's important to ensure there is no conflicting information within the Knowledge Base.

Do	Don't
Do understand your applicant experience and hiring workflows before you build the Knowledge Base spreadsheet. Be sure the information you include in your Knowledge Base completely aligns with your applicant experience.	For the manual CSV creation process, don’t focus on singular questions an applicant might ask when developing the Question column. Instead, focus on building context-rich information in the Answer column.
Do provide details and rich context about your job Openings and roles, as they pertain specifically to your company. This creates a more effective, smarter AI agent.	Don’t provide existing data that is already core to Fountain’s underlying AI technology (see Applicant Data and Fountain Data in the above image). For example, don’t provide instructions to reschedule an interview, as that is core to the underlying AI knowledge.
Do provide reasons an applicant should want to work at your company within your answers. (i.e. context about culture, brand, values, mission, etc.) The information you enter will “sell” the job.	Don’t provide general or common world knowledge (i.e. the common work week is Monday through Friday). Instead provide robust information and details about your job Openings, roles, and company.
Do use one “voice” and concise language to ensure clarity and consistency throughout the file.	Don’t use acronyms without defining the acronym at least once.
Do review and audit all information regularly to guarantee there is no conflicting information (i.e. terms, instructions, details).	Don’t forget to revisit and update your Knowledge Base regularly to ensure current accuracy and relevancy.
Do be certain the information you enter is clear and beneficial to both job seekers and applicants.	Don’t include acronyms or references that only applicants would understand. Instead, use precise language that is clear to both applicants and new job seekers.
Do include a website/URL in its full form, not as a clickable hyperlink.	For the manual CSV creation process, don’t include hyperlinks, as they are not compatible with CSV files.

Updating Your Knowledge Base

Fountain recommends regularly adding new questions from job seekers and applicants to keep your Knowledge Base current. To update your Knowledge Base, follow the steps below:

To edit, update, or change any information in your AI Agent Knowledge Base, follow the steps below:

Navigate to Company Settings by clicking your initial icon in the top right corner of any Fountain page. Then click Company Settings in the dropdown.
Click Candidate AI Agent in the toolbar on the left.
Click the 3 dots button to the right of the Candidate AI agent you want to update and then Edit in the menu.
Make any adjustments in the Personalize AI Agent and Set AI Agent Functionalities screens. If no changes are needed, simply click Save and Next to move to the Train AI Agent screen.
You will now update the Knowledge Base:
1. If you used the AI Assistant to originally create the Knowledge Base, you will be brought back to the conversation where you can ask the AI Assistant to change any previous information.
  1. You can also click the View Knowledge Base button to manually edit or add new topics.
  2. Click Publish to finalize the updates.
2. If you created the Knowledge Base via manual CSV file, you will be brought to the CSV creation screen.
  1. Click Download to replace the current Knowledge Base with updated information.
  2. Update the information directly in the CSV file. The CSV file you download will have a new column called “uuid”. It is important not to make changes to that column as it is used by the AI Agent when updating. Make changes only to other columns.
  3. Click Reupload. A success message will appear at the top of the screen.
  4. Click Publish to finalize the changes.

Important Note:

When manually updating a CSV file, re-uploading the file will overwrite any previously submitted Knowledge Base CSV file. For this reason, it is important to ensure any information you want the AI Agent to retain is left in the CSV file. Do not upload a CSV with just changes. Instead, add any new questions and answers to the bottom of the existing file that you download.