Video: Tips to optimize conversational AI search on your website. Captions and transcript available on playback.

Tips to optimize conversational AI search on your website

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Expectations around how we all interact with information online are shifting. Today’s users don’t want to dig through documents or guess at keywords. They expect clear, accurate answers delivered instantly, in their own words, and drawn from trusted content.

That’s where conversational AI search comes in, and where the Squiz Conversational Search advantages really stand out. With governance-first design, marketer-friendly control, and enterprise-grade transparency, it bridges the gap between intelligence and reliability. The line between enterprise vs consumer AI experiences is becoming clear.

But as interest in AI continues to grow, so does the noise. Many organizations are exploring it, but not many know how to implement it well.

In this blog, we’ll share 6 best practices for conversational search optimization on your website and how Squiz Conversational Search delivers on each of them. But first…

In the enterprise vs consumer AI landscape, conversational search represents the next generation of intelligent discovery, built not for entertainment, but for accuracy, governance, and user trust.

Conversational AI search enables users to ask questions in their own words and receive instant, accurate answers pulled from your verified content. It’s a step beyond traditional keyword search, feeling more intuitive, seamless, and context-aware.

Some of the pain points solved by this intelligent search solution are:

• Low discoverability and information overload: Users struggle to find relevant answers even when the content exists because traditional search relies on links and keywords, not intent.
• High support costs: Staff spend significant time responding to repeat questions and guiding users through complex systems, instead of focusing on higher-value work.
• Fragmented user experiences: Users have to navigate multiple systems or know exactly where to look, which causes frustration and drop-offs.
• Underused content: Valuable content often goes unseen because it’s buried or hard to access with keyword-based search, limiting the ROI of content investments.
• Limited user insight: Keyword analytics don’t reveal true intent. Conversational queries offer deeper visibility into what users actually need, enabling better content and service design.

And unlike generic AI tools, Squiz Conversational Search offers you greater control and trust over the outcome of your search agent. It understands questions, maintains context across follow-ups, and only delivers answers that are supported by your approved content. No hallucinations. No off-topic diversions. Just clear, trusted responses.

For more detailed information on what Squiz Conversational Search is and how it works, check out this blog.

With so much noise in the AI space, it’s easy to focus on flashy features and miss what really matters. When evaluating a conversational AI search tool, these enterprise AI search tips can help you focus on what drives real value: accuracy, control, content alignment, and long-term performance.

In this section, we outline six must-have capabilities to look for in a conversational AI search experience (and show how Squiz delivers on each). These best practices are core to realizing the Squiz Conversational Search advantages.

AI search is powerful, but it’s not magic. Early user trust comes from understanding what the tool can and can’t do, and what it’s designed to deliver.

How Squiz Conversational Search delivers on this:

• Verified answers only: Building on the above, you won’t get speculative or generic AI responses. Once the AI model generates an answer based on your content, it automatically runs that answer through a built-in validation step – where the system performs a "faithfulness check" –  to verify that the generated response draws only from your approved content sources and doesn’t include any external information. This two-step process ensures that nothing goes off-script.
• No hallucinations: Squiz Conversational Search never guesses or provides uncertain answers. If an answer isn't in your content, our solution won't attempt to respond with potentially inaccurate information. Instead, it will either guide users to traditional search or let them know it can’t answer the query.
• Contextual continuity: Users can ask follow-up questions (multi-turn), and Squiz will maintain context throughout the exchange, just like a helpful assistant. This is enabled by session-aware logic that keeps track of prior user inputs within a conversation, allowing the AI to interpret follow-up questions in context, while still verifying each response against your approved content sources.

Even the best AI can’t fix bad content. Squiz provides a set of tools to help you get your content ready before launch and to keep it optimized over time.

How Squiz Conversational Search delivers on this:

• Readiness simulation: Run common queries through a conversational readiness tool to test how well your existing content supports clear, consistent answers and pinpoint where refinements are needed.
• Controlled access: Define exactly which pages, documents, data, or systems the AI can access, so it only pulls from approved, trusted, and relevant sources.
• Ongoing content audits: Use content health auditing tools to proactively spot issues and keep your content accurate as it evolves.
• Clarity-first formatting: Structure your content for clarity and AI consumption. Concise summaries and well-formatted FAQs typically outperform long, dense pages.

Ongoing monitoring helps you, as a website owner and content editor, keep your conversational AI search effective, accurate, and aligned with user needs.

How Squiz Conversational Search delivers on this:

• Conversation review: Website owners can access history to evaluate answer quality, identify trends, and spot friction points in real queries (note, conversation history is not available to the end user).
• Low-confidence detection: Use conversational monitoring tools to flag failed or uncertain interactions, so nothing slips through unnoticed.
• Performance tracking: Monitor usage patterns and answer quality over time via the Conversational Health Monitor.
• Insight-driven improvements: Apply what you learn to refine your content, adjust system behavior, and enhance overall performance.

Consistency builds trust. A conversational AI search tool should let you tailor the tone, depth, and behavior of responses so the experience feels like a natural extension of your brand. Just as importantly, you need governance controls to ensure those answers stay accurate, appropriate, and aligned with your internal standards.

How Squiz Conversational Search delivers on this:

• Tone and language: Customize how the AI communicates, including formal vs. relaxed tone and concise vs. detailed answers.
• Search behavior: Adjust fallback rules, response confidence thresholds, and escalation paths to suit your internal governance.
• UI configuration: While initial setup may require support from technical staff, our goal is to make ongoing adjustments like tone, behavior, and output formatting increasingly accessible to a broader range of users. This gives you meaningful control over the search experience, while we handle the complexity behind the scenes.

These governance mindset is one of the elements that help you turn your conversational experience into a truly controlled AI search environment, safeguarding both brand integrity and factual accuracy

A best-in-class AI-powered enterprise search tool should meet you where your content lives, not force you to rebuild it. Whether you use multiple CMSs, document systems, or internal knowledge bases, your search solution needs to unify them seamlessly.

How Squiz Conversational Search delivers on this:

• Multi-source indexing: Pulls from any system (not just your CMS), including intranets, third-party platforms, and internal repositories.
• Unstructured data handling: Squiz Funnelback’s flexible ingestion pipeline and metadata extraction capabilities allow it to index and analyze content from non-traditional sources (like PDFs, policy documents, and meeting notes) by parsing full text and applying automated tagging, so relevant answers can be surfaced even from inconsistent or loosely formatted content.
• Search package flexibility: Gives you full control over which content sources are included, so you always know what your AI is referencing.

Even the best AI tool won’t succeed without the right setup and strategy behind it. From content prep to post-launch optimization, long-term success depends on more than just technology - it requires expert guidance and a plan for continuous improvement.

With Squiz, you're not going it alone. Our consulting framework ensures that setup, deployment, and ongoing success are part of the package, not afterthoughts:

• Strategic content assessment
• Search configuration and testing
• Deployment of monitoring tools for content and performance enhancement

We don’t just hand over software, we partner with your team to ensure your conversational search stays accurate, aligned, and continually improving.

Want to understand how conversational AI search could transform your user experience?

Let’s explore how Squiz Conversational Search feature (powered by Squiz Funnelback Search) can boost engagement, improve satisfaction, and reduce support load while putting proven search experience best practices into action.

Want advice on how to get started with conversational AI search? Book a 30-minute chat with a Squiz strategy consultant here.