Is Documentation Generation and Maintenance a Good Use Case for LLMs?

Keeping technical documentation accurate, up-to-date, and consistent is critical to delivering a great user experience and reducing operational burdens. Documentation generation and maintenance is essential for both internal teams and external users, ensuring clarity and minimizing support overhead. However, managing frequent updates, especially in complex environments, can overwhelm documentation teams. This is where a platform approach to Large Language Models (LLMs) can be transformative, automating content creation, streamlining updates, and maintaining consistency—empowering teams to focus on more strategic, high-value tasks.

A Real-World Example of when LLMs Can Help with Documentation Generation & Maintenance

A leading software company acquires several SaaS companies and finds itself grappling with disjointed and inconsistent technical documentation. Each acquired company has its own documentation practices, leading to a fragmented ecosystem of product manuals, user guides, and support materials. As a result, users struggle to find the correct information, leading to a spike in support tickets. Meanwhile, the internal documentation team is overwhelmed, struggling to keep pace with frequent product updates, which leads to frustration and burnout.

Common Challenges & Pains

• Users often have difficulty navigating technical documentation, encountering outdated or conflicting information.
• All companies have their own style, format, and approach to documentation, which results in a lack of uniformity across documentation assets after a company is acquired.
• Disjointed documentation leads to an increase in support tickets since users are unable to find the answers they need on their own. This increases the workload on the support team, leading to delays in resolving customer issues.
• Documentation teams are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content that needs to be updated and maintained.
• Frequently released product updates further exacerbate the issue, and teams struggle to keep up with the demand, leading to frustration and burnout.

Taking a Platform Approach

Companies need a structured approach to manage and maintain technical documentation. An LLM software platform like Vertesia can unify and streamline documentation to ensure that all documentation is consistent, up-to-date, and easily accessible to users, while also reducing the workload on the documentation team.

Content Structuring and Storage
The platform structures and stores source data in a modular and hierarchical manner. Each module or component of the system can have its corresponding documentation source, linked directly to the relevant codebase or process description. An LLM then analyzes and categorizes content based on its semantic meaning, allowing the platform to tag and organize documentation components for easy retrieval and update.

Linking with Changesets
The platform integrates directly with Version Control Systems (VCSs) to monitor changesets. When a changeset is detected (e.g., code changes, process updates), the platform triggers an analysis to determine which parts of the documentation may be impacted.

Iterative Content Generation
Using one or more LLMs, the platform assesses the extent and nature of changes, identifying relevant sections of the documentation that need updating or revision. Then, an LLM generates a draft of the required documentation updates based on the changeset analysis. This draft might include new content, revisions, or annotations suggesting areas for review.

Validation of Output
The platform iteratively refines the proposed documentation by continuously reviewing changes, integrating feedback, and ensuring alignment with the project’s documentation standards and style guides. The platform also supports collaborative editing, allowing team members to review, comment, and approve changes before finalizing the documentation update.

The platform performs automatic checks on the generated documentation, verifying consistency, completeness, and adherence to predefined style and format rules. For critical documentation, the platform facilitates manual reviews by subject matter experts. The platform also incorporates feedback from manual reviews into its learning model, enhancing future automated updates.

Why Choose an LLM Software Platform?

An LLM software platform like Vertesia, offers customers a scalable and efficient solution to documentation challenges. The key benefits include:

Scalability
The platform can easily handle the growing volume of documentation as the customer expands its product offerings.

Consistency
Vertesia ensures that all documentation is uniform, eliminating the inconsistencies that plagued the customer's previous efforts.

Improved Collaboration
By integrating with VCSs and offering collaboration tools, the platform facilitates better coordination among teams, ensuring that documentation updates are reviewed and approved efficiently.

Efficiency
By automating large portions of the documentation process, the platform significantly reduces the workload on the documentation team, alleviating burnout and allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks.

Improved User Experience
With accurate, up-to-date documentation readily available, users can find the information they need without resorting to support tickets, leading to higher customer satisfaction.

What to Expect After Implementing Vertesia?

Conclusion

In summary, an LLM software platform like Vertesia can transform your company’s documentation process, delivering substantial business value and reducing the effort required to maintain high-quality, consistent, and up-to-date technical documentation.

To see Vertesia in action, schedule a live demo with one of our LLM experts.