In Intercom the knowledge base is called the Help Center. Customise it, write public articles, add them to collections, then set the Help Center to Live under Settings, Help Center. Articles only show, and only appear in search, once they sit inside a collection, so build collections before you launch.
Answer the same question once, not fifty times
If your inbox keeps filling with the same five questions, a self-serve help site is the fix. The Help Center lets you publish public articles so customers can find answers on their own. Your team can also drop those articles into inbox conversations and send them in outbound messages, so one well-written answer gets used again and again.
There's a bonus if you use the AI side of the platform: Fin AI Agent can use your public articles to hold conversations and give AI answers. The better your articles, the better those answers get.
Seven steps from blank to live
1. Brand it and pick a language
Start by customising the Help Center to match your brand and choosing its language. This sets how the public site looks before anyone sees it.
2. Decide on a custom domain
A custom domain such as help.yourapp.io is optional. It matters if you want to keep certain articles private with audience targeting, because that feature needs a custom domain. If you're running one help site for everyone, you can skip this and come back later.
3. Write your first public article
Click New content and select Public article. The article editor lets you add images, videos and tables from the toolbar. Write for the question as your customer phrases it, not as your team does internally.
4. Create a collection
Go to Settings, Help Center, then your Help Center, and click New collection. Give it a name, pick an icon and add a short description. Think of collections as the shelves customers browse: billing, getting started, integrations, troubleshooting.
5. Put articles inside it
Use the three dots next to a collection to add articles or nested collections, then drag and drop to reorder. Icons only work on first-level collections; sub-collections get the default folder icon, and nested collections sit at the bottom, under the parent's articles.
6. Set it Live
Go to Settings, Help Center, and set it Live from the dropdown at the top. That makes it available to customers and to search engines.
7. Check it and watch the reports
Use the eye icon to view the live site. After that, the Articles report and the reactions on each article (happy, neutral or disappointed) show how helpful your content is, and which searched topics had no answer at all. That last list is your writing queue.
The orphan article problem
Here's the one that confuses new admins most. An article that isn't in a collection doesn't show on the Help Center and can't be found in its search. You can write it, publish it, and still have customers tell you they can't find it. So whenever you write something new, add it to a collection in the same sitting.
You can't embed articles on your own site
Intercom Help is clear on this: you can't embed Help Center articles on your own website, because access is restricted to the platform. If you want your article content inside your own app or site, the REST API is the route for retrieving article data. For most small businesses it's simpler to link to the help site from your menu and footer, and let the articles live there.
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If you're planning to feed the same articles to an AI assistant elsewhere, this checklist for preparing a knowledge base for AI covers how to structure content so it's easy to retrieve.
How Zendesk organises the same job
Zendesk works on a similar principle: a knowledge base article has to be placed in a section, and up to 40,000 articles, not counting translations and archived ones, can be created. HubSpot also has its own knowledge base tool if you already run your CRM there.
For a fuller comparison of help site platforms, my guide to the best knowledge base software sets the options side by side, and this list of other customer messaging platforms is useful if you're still choosing.
My advice for your first ten articles
Don't start with a grand structure. Pull the ten questions your team answers most often, write one article for each, and put them into two or three collections. Go live, then let the Articles report and the no-answer searches tell you what to write next. A small help site that answers real questions beats a large one nobody reads.
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Frequently asked questions
What does Intercom call its knowledge base?
The Help Center, where you publish public articles organised into collections.
Why can't customers find my article?
Articles must sit in a collection to appear in, and be searchable on, the Help Center.
Can I keep some articles private?
Yes, using audience targeting, which needs a custom domain.
Can I embed the Help Center on my own site?
Not directly; access is restricted to the platform, though article data can be pulled with the REST API.
Can Fin use my articles?
Yes. Fin AI Agent can use your public articles to give answers.
