# The Knowledge Base Software Landscape

> Knowledge base software used to be the least glamorous corner of SaaS - help centers, FAQs, and product manuals. Four companies drew very different maps of the same territory: ProProfs built a broad, affordable toolkit out of a free quiz site; Slite made a beautiful writing app for internal teams; MadCap Flare became the heavyweight for technical documentation; and Intercom turned the help center into fuel for support automation. Then AI made the boring category strategic. Retrieval-augmented agents only answer as well as the knowledge they read, so the humble knowledge base became the thing every AI assistant depends on - and Intercom renamed itself Fin, Slite launched Super, and MadCap started talking about knowledge activation.

## Achievements

- MadCap Flare became a standard tool for professional technical writers, with single-source publishing to web, print, PDF and mobile.
- ProProfs grew from a free quiz site into a multi-product suite spanning knowledge base, help desk, quizzes and training.
- Slite reached YC and Index Ventures backing on the strength of design and founder-led content, raising around $15.5M.
- Intercom scaled its help center and support platform to tens of thousands of customers before pivoting the whole company to AI as Fin.
- Fin's ~$3.6B Salesforce acquisition made the knowledge-grounded support agent one of the marquee AI deals of 2026.

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Salesforce agreed to acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for roughly $3.6 billion, adding tens of thousands of AI customers to Agentforce.
- **2026-05** — Intercom renamed itself Fin, putting its AI agent's name on the parent company.
- **2025** — Slite launched Super, extending from a team knowledge base into AI search and agents across a company's tools.

## Links

- Website: https://www.proprofs.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madcap-software-inc

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Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-07