Blog · Mon 12th Jan, 2026

What Data Do You Need to Train a Smart Chatbot?

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Key takeaways

  • FAQs and knowledge base are the foundation. Add real conversations for phrasing.
  • Product and policy data must be accurate and current.
  • Include edge cases so the bot knows when to escalate.

A chatbot is only as good as what it's trained on. Generic training produces generic answers. To build something that actually helps your customers, you need the right data.

FAQs and knowledge base

Your existing FAQs, help articles, and internal docs. This is the foundation. Format them as Q&A pairs or structured content the model can retrieve.

Real conversations

Past support tickets, chat logs, and call transcripts. How do customers actually phrase questions? What do your best agents say? This grounds the bot in reality.

Product and policy data

Pricing, features, policies, availability. The bot needs to give accurate, up-to-date answers. Connect it to live data where possible.

Edge cases

The weird questions, the complaints, the things that go wrong. Train the bot to recognise when it's out of depth and escalate. Don't let it guess.

FAQs

Depends on the use case. A simple FAQ bot might need 50–100 Q&A pairs. Complex support needs more—and real conversation examples.
Cleaning and structuring is part of the process. We help organise it into a format the bot can use.

Building a chatbot?

We help you gather and structure the right training data.