What the Knowledge Base Is and Why It Exists
Research teams accumulate knowledge continuously. Studies get commissioned, debriefed, and filed. Reports arrive from other teams, from external suppliers, from syndicated sources. Each one is read, noted, and stored. By the time a new project starts, most of that accumulated knowledge is functionally invisible — not because it is irrelevant, but because it is not in the room. It sits in a shared drive or a file system, disconnected from the platform where the new project is being planned and built.
The Knowledge Base was built to close that gap. It is a storage layer inside Standard Insights where the team can upload research they already own — past consumer studies, externally sourced reports, analyses produced by other teams — so that the platform can read and use that content when generating new work. Research that was filed becomes research that is active.
The feature works in two distinct modes. The first is as a source layer during report generation: when building a new report, the team can draw on Knowledge Base content to enrich the output with their own research context. The second is as a directly interrogable archive: through the homepage chat interface, the team can ask questions of stored documents, surface findings from past studies, and identify what is already known before deciding what to commission next. Both modes serve the same underlying purpose — making existing knowledge available to new work rather than letting it sit beside it.
The Knowledge Base does not generate knowledge. It activates knowledge the team already has.
What to Upload and How
The Knowledge Base is designed for research that was not built on Standard Insights. Past consumer studies conducted through other platforms, reports purchased from external suppliers, syndicated datasets, analyses produced by other internal teams — these are the documents that belong here. Standard Insights reports do not need to be uploaded; they are already inside the platform and available to the system.
Upload is straightforward. The platform accepts PDF files. Every team member on an Enterprise account can upload to the shared Knowledge Base, and every team member can access what has been uploaded. The Knowledge Base is account-private — uploaded content is not accessible to Standard Insights or to any other account. A team uploading proprietary research assets, competitor analyses, or confidential internal studies can do so without that content leaving their account environment. Storage is capped at 50GB per account.
Once a document is uploaded, the platform reads and indexes its contents so that the material can be referenced during report generation and queried directly through chat. The document does not need to be reformatted or summarised before upload — the platform processes the content as uploaded.
The practical implication is straightforward: the value of the Knowledge Base scales directly with what is in it. A team that uploads three years of past brand tracking studies has three years of research context available to every new project from the moment those documents are indexed. A team that uploads nothing has none of that context available.
Upload once. The platform makes the content available to every project that follows.
Using Knowledge Base as a Source Layer in New Reports
The first mode of use is during report generation. When creating a new report and adding a Market Trends page, the platform gives the user the option to select sources from their Knowledge Base to inform the content generated on that page.
The workflow appears at the point of building the Market Trends page within a new report. The user selects which Knowledge Base documents they want the platform to draw on, and the platform incorporates that content as a source layer alongside its default secondary data. The resulting Market Trends page reflects the team's own research context — not only what the platform's standard sources contain, but what the team's uploaded research contains as well.
This is the feature's most direct application for teams running ongoing research programmes. A brand insights team that has uploaded several years of annual brand tracking data can generate a Market Trends page that draws on that longitudinal context rather than starting from scratch with each new study. The output is specific to the brand's own history with its consumers, not generic to the category.
Knowledge Base sources are available as a layer on the Market Trends page specifically. They do not currently apply to other report pages.
Selecting sources deliberately — rather than pointing the platform at the entire Knowledge Base indiscriminately — produces better results. A document that maps closely onto the new study's topic will produce more targeted enrichment than a tangentially related one.
The more relevant the source to the strategic question, the more specific the output.
Engaging with Knowledge Base Content via Chat
The second mode of use does not require a new report to be in progress. From the homepage chat interface, the team can ask questions directly of the content stored in the Knowledge Base at any point.
The chat can surface findings from a specific uploaded study, identify recurring themes across multiple documents, and answer questions about what the team's existing research already covers. The most useful application of this mode is at the scoping stage of a new project — before a new survey brief is written, before fieldwork is commissioned. A team that interrogates their Knowledge Base first can identify which questions their existing research has already answered, which gaps remain genuinely open, and which hypotheses are supported or challenged by what they already know.
The practical consequence of using this mode well is a research budget that compounds rather than resets. A team that commissions a new study without consulting their existing knowledge risks asking questions they already have answers to. A team that queries the Knowledge Base before scoping the new study arrives at the brief with a clearer picture of where the genuine gaps are, which makes the new study more precise and the investment more defensible.
The chat interface lives on the platform homepage and is available to all Enterprise account members with access to the Knowledge Base.
Query the archive before scoping the study. The gaps worth commissioning are the ones existing research has not already answered.
Common Use Cases
A brand insights team has conducted annual brand health tracking studies for three years through a previous research supplier. Those studies are uploaded to the Knowledge Base as PDFs. When a new brand health survey is commissioned through Standard Insights, the team selects those historical studies as sources for the Market Trends page. The output reflects the brand's own longitudinal data — awareness trends, consideration shifts, competitor positioning over time — rather than category-level secondary data alone. The new study is built on top of three years of context the team already owned.
A strategy team has purchased a competitor landscape report from an external research supplier. Before scoping a new product launch survey, a team member opens the homepage chat and asks the Knowledge Base what the competitor report says about consumer unmet needs in the category. The chat surfaces the relevant findings. The team arrives at the new survey brief already knowing which competitive gaps are documented and which questions the new study needs to focus on — rather than commissioning a study that partly duplicates what the purchased report already covers.
An HR team conducted an employee engagement study two years ago through a different platform, before Standard Insights was in use. The results exist as a PDF report. That document is uploaded to the Knowledge Base. When the team runs a new engagement study through Standard Insights, they can query the earlier study through chat to identify which themes have shifted and which have remained consistent — even though the two studies were run on different instruments and at different points in time. The earlier research does not sit in a filing system. It sits in the same environment as the new work.
Every study the team has ever run is a potential source for the next one. The Knowledge Base is what makes that possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
What file formats does the Knowledge Base accept?
The Knowledge Base accepts PDF files.
Is there a storage limit per account?
Yes. Storage is capped at 50GB per Enterprise account.
Can multiple team members access and upload to the same Knowledge Base?
Yes. All members of an Enterprise account can view and upload to the shared Knowledge Base.
Is content in the Knowledge Base private to the account?
Yes. Uploaded content is account-private. It is not accessible to Standard Insights or to any other account on the platform.
Can I delete or replace a document after uploading it?
Yes. Documents can be deleted or replaced after upload. Deleting a document removes it from the Knowledge Base and it will no longer be available as a source for report generation or chat queries.
Is the Knowledge Base available on all plans or Enterprise only?
The Knowledge Base is an Enterprise feature.