01
Choose a useful question set
Start with one team and recurring questions: product dimensions, handling instructions or an internal returns procedure. Collect the sources your experienced staff actually trust.
Trade counters · Internal sales · Product support
Private AI that helps your wholesale team find the answer
The answer may be in a product sheet, a supplier manual, a returns policy or an old internal note. Cortex gives your team a way to ask those documents a question, see the source and keep the search inside the network you control.
Fixed scopeQuoted before work starts
Human controlDecisions stay with your team
Honest boundaryKeep existing systems where they work
The customer is waiting while someone hunts for the document
An experienced colleague knows which manual has the fitting dimensions, where the returns procedure lives and which catalogue revision applies. Everyone else searches folders or interrupts them. A private assistant can make approved information easier to find, while keeping uncertain or conflicting answers visible.
How the workflow works
These are the stages we would review with your team, then include or exclude explicitly in the project scope.
02
Approve the document collection
Agree the product identifiers, current versions and excluded material. Old datasheets and draft procedures should not look interchangeable with current approved records.
03
Apply the access boundary
Define which users may retrieve which information. Pricing, buying terms and restricted account material require explicit access rules, not just an instruction to the assistant to keep them private.
04
Show the evidence with the answer
Return the relevant document or passage alongside the response. Staff can inspect it before advising the customer. Missing evidence or conflicting versions should produce a clear limitation.
05
Separate records from live queries
If live stock or order questions are needed, scope a supported, permission-controlled system query. Return the recorded value, location and update time; document search alone cannot answer what is available now.
06
Test and hand over
Use representative questions, missing answers, changed documents and access tests. Agree who maintains the source collection and how the team reports an answer that needs correction.
A product question and a stock question need different evidence
Illustrative example: a counter assistant asks for a fitting’s dimensions. Cortex retrieves the approved datasheet with the product reference and source passage. They then ask whether eight are available at Crawley. That second answer needs a separately agreed stock-system connection and the current availability rule. Without it, the assistant should say it cannot check availability, rather than reuse a number from an old document.
Finding product information is not approving a substitution
A matching phrase is not proof that two products are interchangeable. Staff retain product-selection, technical suitability and commercial decisions. The assistant does not automatically promise a delivery date, change a customer price, place a purchase order or release stock. Those actions need their own explicit workflows and approvals.
Working with the systems you already have
Document search runs on the agreed local infrastructure. Before installation, we map source storage, user access, backups and any existing cloud services so the privacy statement matches the complete setup. ERP or stock-system connections are assessed separately for product version, interface, permissions and refresh frequency. Their numeric results come from checked records and calculations, not model guesswork.
Starting point, price and scope
Cortex private AI installations start from £4,950. Begin with one team, an approved collection and a set of questions that can be checked against known answers. Live ERP queries, multiple access groups, substantial document cleanup and specialist integrations depend on the agreed scope and may add to the price. The Operations Audit is available if the useful starting point is still unclear.
Hosting, optional support, third-party licences and any additional work are agreed in the quote. See pricing and what is included, or start with the £895 Operations Audit if the workflow needs measuring first.
Is this the right purchase?
A good fit
A good fit when useful product and operational knowledge is spread across substantial document collections, staff ask repeat questions and local processing matters to the business.
When another route makes sense
If the catalogue is small and its existing search works, use it. If the actual need is a stock total, a price calculation or an order-status screen, ordinary business software may be the more direct answer.
Questions to settle before the build
Can it answer stock availability questions?
Only through an agreed connection to authoritative stock records. A document index is not a live stock system. The answer must show the relevant location, availability rule and update time.
Can sales staff see buying prices?
Only if they are authorised to. We define permitted sources and enforce access in the retrieval or system-query layer. A shared assistant does not mean every user gets every record.
Does private AI make every answer correct?
No. Local processing controls where the agreed work runs; it does not remove the need to inspect sources or review a consequential answer. We test the assistant against your question set.
Is this a chatbot for our customers?
This page describes an internal staff assistant. A customer-facing assistant would need separate content, permissions, support and escalation rules, and is separately scoped.
Connect this to the rest of the operation
See all wholesale, stock and distribution software, or explore Private AI and Cortex.
Built and supported locally
Based in Horsham, we work on site across Sussex and Surrey. Explore the practical starting points for businesses in Crawley and Manor Royal, Burgess Hill.
Bring ten questions your counter team asks the same colleague.
The first fifteen minutes are free. We will review the problem, identify the useful boundary and explain what would need checking before a quote.
If the underlying workflow needs a better record before it needs an assistant, explore a bespoke order, stock or customer system.