Vendor Radar: Knowby – Simplicity and Accessibility, While Harnessing AI to Automate Content Creation

Overview of the Company

Knowby’s main offering is a digital instructions platform that transforms intricate tasks into clear, step-by-step guides. These guides, or ‘knowbys’, often incorporate images or short video clips alongside text, enabling users to concentrate on individual actions in sequence. This method is based on Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), developed by John Sweller, Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of New South Wales, which enhances learning through effective instructional strategies that significantly improve learning efficiency, comprehension, and retention.

A key element of Knowby’s recent strategy is its substantial investment in artificial intelligence (AI). The introduction of Knowby AI in early 2025, a multimodal generative AI tool, aims to revolutionise the creation of instructional content by converting lengthy video and audio materials into structured, step-by-step guides with impressive speed and minimal technical expertise required from the user. This AI-driven automation is designed to make the production of high-quality instructional content quicker, more efficient, and accessible to a wider range of subject matter experts. This advancement, combined with a user-focused design philosophy, positions Knowby to significantly reduce the barriers to knowledge capture and sharing.

Knowby Pro is available on multiple devices, including iOS, iPadOS, Android, and a comprehensive web application, ensuring users can access instructions from anywhere. The platform’s flexibility supports a variety of use cases, including work instructions, business process documentation, digital instruction manuals, employee onboarding and training, standard operating procedures (SOPs), safety training, quality control, and customer instructions.

Key Features of the Knowby Platform:

• Easy Creation: users can create knowbys with text, images, and video, or utilise Knowby AI to automatically generate instructions from video content.
• Real-time Updates & Version Control: changes are updated instantly, and a version history is maintained.
• QR Code Access: knowbys can be accessed immediately by scanning a QR code for on-the-spot guidance.
• Video Intelligence: users can upload a video to create knowbys automatically.
• Multilingual Support: content can be translated into over 130 languages, catering to a global workforce.
• Offline Mode: guides can be downloaded for access without an internet connection.
• Customisable Branding: organisations can personalise their Knowby environment.
• Compliance Tools & Audit Trails: features support compliance tracking and maintain detailed logs.
• Feedback and Analytics: users can provide feedback, and administrators can monitor usage.
• Approval Workflow: a structured process for review and approval before publication.
• Public Knowby Sharing: specific knowbys can be shared publicly via a direct link.
• User Experience Enhancements: recent updates include dark mode, full-screen viewing, flexible content layouts, and autosave.

Knowby’s inherent design as an effective learning tool, rooted in CLT, means its intuitive nature generally eliminates the need for external consulting or extensive hand-holding during implementation. This allows most customers to deploy live knowbys on the first day.

Customer Profile

Knowby targets businesses and organisations across a wide range of industries, having rapidly expanded from its origins in the agricultural sector into mining and utilities. The platform is now used in over 20 distinct industries and 70 countries worldwide.

Knowby’s ideal clients are typically organisations looking to enhance:

• Digital Transformations: by providing simplified, accessible, and easily consumed training instructions for new processes, it significantly enhances change management to overcome common transformation challenges.
• Employee Onboarding and Training: speeding up the competency of new hires and standardising training delivery.
• SOPs and Business Process Documentation: creating clear, accessible, and up-to-date documentation for consistent operations.
• Health and Safety Compliance and Training: ensuring adherence to safety protocols and providing effective safety training.
• Customer-Facing Instructions and Support: improving customer experience through clear product guides, after-sales support, and enabling customer self-service.
• Knowledge Retention and Reducing Key Person Dependency: capturing critical operational knowledge to prevent its loss and reduce reliance on specific individuals.
• Intellectual Property (IP) Documentation and Value Maximisation: systematically documenting internal processes and proprietary knowledge to enhance business value.

Organisations with multilingual workforces or global customer bases benefit significantly from the platform’s extensive language support and offline accessibility.

Growth Strategy

Knowby’s growth strategy appears to focus on several key areas:

• Leveraging Knowby AI: the AI platform is central to automating and simplifying content creation, making high-quality instructional content faster and more accessible for users without specialised editing skills. This positions Knowby to capture a significant market share by lowering barriers to entry and ongoing utilisation.
• Continuous Platform Development: Knowby shows a commitment to iterative improvement, with frequent updates based on user feedback and market demands, ensuring the product remains competitive and valuable.
• Market Expansion: building on its presence in 70 countries and over 20 industries, Knowby aims for further international and industry diversification, supported by its multilingual capabilities and the universal appeal of its solution.
• Strategic Alliances: Knowby has established an Affiliate Program to expand its user base through referral marketing, incentivising partners to refer new customers. While current formal technology integrations are limited, this represents a significant area for future development to enhance workflow automation and enterprise adoption.
• Value Proposition for Businesses: Knowby actively promotes its platform as a tool that can increase overall business valuation by systematically documenting critical processes and maximising intellectual property value.

Challenges

• Digital Literacy: while Knowby is considered relatively intuitive, some organisations may require training and support to effectively utilise the platform, especially those with less digital literacy.
• Cost and Implementation: the cost of implementing and maintaining Knowby, as well as the time required for onboarding and training, will need to be considered by organisations.
• Integration with Existing Systems: for Knowby to be truly effective, it needs to integrate seamlessly with existing management software, traceability systems, and other relevant technologies.

Disclaimer

IBRS Radar papers are not endorsements. They are part of our commitment to raising the capability of the domestic ICT industry.

The IBRS Radar series provides high-level snapshots of local Australian technology vendors and service providers. The goal of these snapshots is to raise awareness of local firms that may be overlooked by the large international advisory firms or that may lack the marketing budget of the industry giants.

IBRS selects these vendors based on their progress within, and relevance to, trends in the Australian ICT landscape. These snapshots are not paid engagements. In most cases, the organisations selected for IBRS Radar come to IBRS’s attention during conversations with their clients, and during our regular conversations with senior local ICT executives and their teams.

Information presented in these snapshots is gathered through interviews with the vendor’s senior executives and, where possible, validated by discussions with their clients.

If you wish to explore the relevance of a vendor to your own projects, you can submit an inquiry to IBRS.