There is a version of this business that would be much easier to run: build one product and sell the same thing sixty times. We don't do that, and it isn't principle — it's that the thing being automated is different at every company, in ways that only show up in your own examples.

Take the agent we usually suggest first, the one that makes old records searchable. On a slide it is one product. In practice it is three different builds.

At a machine shop

It reads job travelers, setup sheets and drawings. People ask by part number and customer: “the stainless bracket we ran for Miller in 2022.” A right answer brings back the traveler, the setup notes and the cycle time, each with the page it came from — the setup itself stays the machinist's call.

At an electrical contractor

It reads submittals, as-builts and inspection records. People ask by job address and inspector: “the panel upgrade on Third Street — who signed off on it?” A right answer links the drawing set and the inspection report, and a qualified person checks it before anyone acts on it. Nothing here is a compliance opinion.

At a distributor

It reads order history, delivery records and correspondence. People ask by SKU and account: “when did we last ship this, and to whom?” A right answer shows the history and the document it came from. What counts as “last” turns out to be a real question, and the answer differs by company.

Where the differences actually live

Same base, three builds. The divergence is never in the AI — it is in four unglamorous places:

  • What the documents are. Scanned travelers behave nothing like a submittal PDF.
  • How people ask. Part number, job address or SKU changes what has to be indexed.
  • What a right answer contains. An answer that is technically correct but missing the cycle time is a wrong answer at a machine shop.
  • Where it must stop. Every build has a line past which a person takes over. Drawing that line is most of the work.

You cannot get any of those from a questionnaire. You get them from the person who does the job, and from their real examples — which is why every job we do starts with a working demo built on those examples, before anyone agrees a price. It isn't a sales pitch. It is the first piece of the build.