Smart Answers

Table of Contents

What are Smart answers?

Enable Smart answers

What to consider before implementing Smart answers

Security

FAQ

What are Smart answers?

As a new part of Simpplr Search, Smart answers is an AI-powered tool that aims to streamline the information retrieval process. It provides users, based only on the content they have access to, with a concise and relevant answer to their queries, eliminating the need to navigate through numerous web pages and click on multiple links. With Smart answers, users can quickly find the latest and most reliable information without hassle.

For example, when searching for information on benefits, Smart answer AI displays a comprehensive and tailored answer by summarizing the key information on your company's benefits (along with relevant citations) at the top of the search results page. An answer is provided only if the information can be found in the documents. Answers are based 100% on the organization's knowledge bases and people profiles. No 3rd party content (e.g., files uploaded or links shared) are searched when using Smart Answers.

Once again, no user will see content from sites or information they do not already have access to in your intranet.

Smart answer utilizes machine learning (ML) and large language models (LLM) to generate answers based on the search results for a given query. The feature analyzes and processes the search results to provide users with relevant information.

If you don't like the answer provided, or feel it is inaccurate or irrelevant to your search, there is an option to provide a thumbs up or thumbs down as feedback. This feedback goes directly to Simpplr's Data Science team to better analyze and improve the feature.

Enable Smart answers

Smart answers can be controlled by the App manager in Manage > Application > Privileges. Scroll down until you see the Generative AI section. Here you can decide to have the feature (along with Writing assistant) on or off for your users.

What to consider before implementing Smart answers

Because the smart answer tool pulls from multiple sources across your intranet, it can sometimes get weighted down with multiple answers to your search queries, and those results could be irrelevant or inaccurate. Say for example, your company hosts 'Customer Win Stories' on a Sales site or something similar. You may consider hosting wordy documents or stories like this on a separate location, and then link to them on Simpplr. This way, Smart answers can decipher the most accurate and appropriate information to surface an answer.  

Security

As is the case with many AI features recently, the big question is around security. How can you be sure the information being generated by Smart answers isn't not being stored or shared somewhere without your explicit consent?

The Smart answer tool is built on Simpplr’s secure platform (click this link for more on Simpplr Security Compliance). Additionally, Smart answer utilizes LLMs through Microsoft’s Azure platform. We have chosen to utilize Azure because they provide a higher level of security and trust, and more control over the data that we pass to them. This includes any input and output to both Simpplr and Azure’s platform not being available in any other place than our private, secure instance, and is not accessible to others. Additionally, the access to this Simpplr resource is controlled and restricted. The data is also encrypted on Azure servers, deleted after a short while, and not used for any other purpose including training LLMs.

What's happening on the backend? 

• The feature is contained and controlled entirely by Microsoft Azure on Simpplr’s private instance. This means that:
  • No data is available to others
  • No data goes to OpenAI or any services operated by OpenAI (i.e., ChatGPT or OpenAI API)
  • No data is used to train any public models
  • No data is used to improve any other Microsoft or other 3rd party products

Click here for more information on the Azure OpenAI service.

Since Smart answers is operated on Simpplr’s private Azure instance, this means that only Simpplr has access to this instance, and no data from it can be used for any other purpose. Additionally, the inputs and outputs from your organization cannot be used for training a model that would be used for other organizations within the Simpplr instance. Additionally, none of the inputs or outputs from your organization are stored in the model itself or used to train it.

Data privacy and retention

All data is covered under DPA, separate instance, is GDPR and CCPA/CPRA compliant. No personal data is transferred outside of the above noted areas, and none is used for anything other than the output for your input. All other standard Simpplr data privacy and security considerations apply to data kept by Simpplr through this process, and are not shared with or used for any other purpose.

Security certifications

Simpplr has received the following security certifications:

• ISO 27001:2013 certification
• SOC 2 Type 2 attestation (available under NDA)
• SOC 3 report (available under NDA)
• EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF) certification 
• TRUSTe Data Privacy Framework (DPF) verification
• TRUSTe Privacy Dispute Resolution program

FAQ

Q: Is Smart answers compatible with all supported languages? 

Because we are using GPT3.5 as our model, any language GPT3.5 supports is supported to the same degree. We are working on some enhancements and will be testing them with the newer models as well. We will plan to upgrade to a newer model once we are satisfied that it improves the quality, which will take some testing. This will be the pattern going forward for all new releases of models.

Q: How does Simpplr store the AI generated content? Is the information sent to any 3rd party vendor?

A: No. All content generated is locally hosted on Simpplr's own instance of Microsoft Azure. Our AI modules are not shared outside and are used internally only. We joined the Responsible AI association to ensure and confirm we are not using AI for anything but the benefit of the customer itself as it is not shared nor abused. See the Security information above for more detail.

Q: Is Smart Answers pulling data/information from any other 3rd part connected to my Simpplr intranet (integrations)?

A: No. Currently, Smart Answers only searches the Simpplr database for natively created content (pages, events and albums) and user profiles. It cannot source from uploaded files or any connected integration vendor you have connected. 

Q: Is generative AI exclusively used in the Smart answer feature? If not, are there other features within Simpplr that leverage Generative AI?

A: Currently generative AI is used in the Smart answers tool, as well as the Writing assistant. 

Q: Has a penetration test been conducted on this feature before full release? If not, when will it be included in a future penetration test?

A: No. The feature has been through our SDLC, security reviews, automated security testing, and internal QA. Penetration tests are conducted on the complete application quarterly. The next test will be in December/January timeframe.

Q: Has the feature been tested to prevent prompt inject attacks or tested for potential harmful output?

A: Yes. The system includes guardrails to reject suggestions to generate potentially harmful output and to protect it against prompt injection attacks. However, in the same way that guardrails can improve but not guarantee motorist safety, no AI system is completely invulnerable to prompt injection. That said, we are continually testing and improving our product to ensure quality.

Q: Will my company own all the content generated by the AI?

A: Yes.

Q: It was noted that data is not used to train the model. Please clarify on which data sets that comprise the LLM uses.

A: Azure OpenAI GPT Turbo 3.5. Simpplr uses the Microsoft Azure OpenAI platform.
Simpplr AI features operate entirely within Simpplr’s private instance on Azure.