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An AI knowledge base for multi-site retailers
Short answer
An AI knowledge base in a retail chain gives the sales associate the rules of a promotion and the difference between where an order was placed and where it is collected, with a link to the material the chain approved. At Syntalith an AI app on company documents costs from €3,000 net. At 2,000 questions from stores a month with 3 minutes of searching each, it pays back in 1.0 month.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- net per application, fixed price before contract
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 4–10 weeks
- free prototype on your documents
- €0
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 3 min read
Statistics
AI knowledge bases: statistics 2026
1.0 mo.
payback of a €3,000 app at 2,000 questions from stores a month: €3,490 of searching today, €554 with the app. Scenario.
15%
According to Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond (2025), customer support agents working with AI resolved 15% more issues an hour on average, in a study of 5,172 people.
Source: Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, The Quarterly Journal of Economics (2025) ↗
47%
According to the European Commission (2026), customer service is the most common use of AI among EU SMEs and mid-caps that already use it: 47%.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 578 (2026) ↗
48.2%
According to Eurostat (2025), 48.2% of EU retail enterprises that use AI use it for marketing or sales.
78%
According to Eurostat (2025), 78% of EU internet users bought or ordered goods or services online in the previous 12 months.
Source: Eurostat, e-commerce statistics for individuals (2025) ↗
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Store pickup does not change how the order was placed
The rules of the current campaign cover orders from the online shop, including those collected in a store. A purchase at the till of a physical store is outside the campaign. A customer collects an online order and asks whether the promotion applies, while the queue waits. When the associate knows only that the customer is standing at the pickup point, they still need to know how the order was placed.
- 01QuestionThe associate describes the situation in their own words.
- 02ChannelThey check in the system how the order was placed.
- 03RuleThe assistant gives the campaign rule with the promotion's name and a link.
- 04GapWhen the rules do not settle it, the question goes to the person responsible for the campaign.
Adding the answer to the shared material helps staff in other stores. Calculating the price stays the job of the sales system, and the assistant only explains the approved rules.
What a retail knowledge base costs and when it pays back
- Today
- 2,000 questions from stores × 3 min = 100 h (€3,490)
- With the system, a person checks the output in 15% of the time
- €524
- Model, 1 call per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €30
- Cost of one case
- €1.75 today, €0.28 with the system
- Saving
- €2,936 a month
Payback of €3,000
1.0 months
The volume, the time and the checking share are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 6,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
The model is a small item here. The result depends on the time that searching and asking around take today, and on how much of it is left for checking the answer. According to Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond (2025), support agents with AI resolved 15% more issues an hour on average, and in a store that difference is a shorter queue.
Before we quote a build, we run a test on 20 to 100 questions the team has already asked: we compare the app's answer with what an employee found by hand and measure the time from the question to the source. The test takes 5 working days and costs €0.
What the sales system already handles
If the campaign rules are short and visible with the order, a clear promotion card is enough. In the Dynamics 365 Commerce documentation, Microsoft describes promotions with dates and price groups linked to sales channels. A separate knowledge base makes sense when staff have access to the rules but cannot find the answer to a question asked in their own words.
Short rules with the order
a promotion card and a shared FAQ
no new app
Promotions and channels in the sales system
system configuration
no new app
Head office messages, training and rules in different places
an AI app with a sourced answer
from €3,000
Help stores explain campaigns without searching folders
Start with a chosen group of campaigns and the questions associates keep taking back to the store manager. The promotions team names the current material and judges whether the answer keeps its meaning, and associates check whether they will use it while talking to a customer. The scope is described on the private ChatGPT for your company page.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: answers from company documents
We run the same count for your documents in the free analysis.
€3,723
a month for finding answers to 800 questions in documents
Payback: 1 mo.
Our assumptions are 8 minutes to find an answer in documents or ask a colleague, and checking in 15% of the old time. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. Model cost: Claude Sonnet 5.5, about 6,000 + 500 tokens per answer from documents, at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
See the full calculation →
