A knowledge base optimizes for capture
A knowledge base preserves institutional memory for employees, partners, or customers. It can hold meeting notes, drafts, internal runbooks, and pages that assume access to internal systems. That flexibility is valuable, but it is not automatically customer-ready.
A help center optimizes for resolution
A help center organizes public content around customer tasks: search or browse, a clear article, related links, and an escalation path. It explains what customers can do themselves, what requires an owner, and when a person needs to help.
Where AI belongs
An AI answer layer should sit on reviewed, published help-center articles. It can translate a natural-language question into the right source, but it should not expose every internal note as support truth. First publish accurate task-based articles; then let answers cite them and use unanswered questions as your editorial queue.