The concept of « augmented consultant » is at the dawn of a new era. The advancement of Generative AI technology is set to reshape how knowledge professionals, especially consultants, operate.
“Argon & Co has championed the integration of Data Science and AI in operational processes since 2017. Our Data Science team, now known as IRIS by Argon & Co, is a key driver of internal and external innovation” shares Fabrice Bonneau, Argon & Co’s founding partner.
Today, we unveil EDGAr, our Generative AI solution tailored for Argonauts. EDGAr – an acronym for Enhanced Discovery and Generation at Argon & Co – aggregates our internal knowledge database of more than 55 000 pages from previous projects, case studies, whitepapers, and benchmark documents, EDGAr doesn’t just locate pertinent content. It contextualizes it, empowering our consultants to deliver bespoke insights for every client interaction.
Whether transforming internal processes, redesigning organizations, or implementing new software solutions, identifying the right experts and comparable projects or deliverables can be a challenge for new joiners. Even for more senior collaborators, a very narrow topic might be harder to pinpoint in past experiences and take days of researching and networking.
For Fabrice Bonneau, “with EDGAr, the research time is compressed so that our consultants can spend more time on problem solving, design, change management and supporting our client’s transformations. Additionally, it makes expertise more accessible to all and has the potential to improve the end quality of each contribution”.
So, how does EDGAr work? A user can type in a question in a simple chat-like interface and EDGAr will scan our knowledge base to identify a dozen of relevant pieces of content. It then will summarize the key points from these documents and formulate a response to the user, leveraging their contents. It will also include links to the original documents and even identify the related experts to turn to. From there, the conversation with EDGAr can continue freely.
“I use EDGAr to prepare for upcoming commercial presentations with repeat Clients. I can get a quick summary of the previous work delivered by my colleagues, on related topics, explains Pierre Veyer, a Principal from the Paris Office. I also use it to draw benchmarks across different industries, which can be an inspiration to solve complex problems.”
Guilhem Delorme, leader of IRIS by Argon & Co, states : “The IRIS team is always committed to deliver transformative tools and solutions that re-shape business processes. This internal development and deployment process allowed us to strengthen our expertise in building end-to-end Generative AI solutions for our Clients.”
EDGAr was carefully designed to meet performance and security standards, backed by the Microsoft Azure platform, and to maintain project and client-level information confidentiality. After a few weeks of development, an « early access » phase validated the concept and usability. Then, EDGar was opened to the entire Paris office, representing around half of the total Argon & Co headcount.
Recognizing the profound impact of AI tools in general, Argon & Co is also investing in upskilling users in Prompt Engineering and making sure every collaborator has a general understanding of the technology capabilities, limitations, and potential risks.
“The next step is to deploy the solution to the rest of Argon & Co offices, located in 14 countries. EDGAr will help speeding up the integration of new local expertise, which is an ongoing challenge for Argon & Co given our rapid external growth these past few years”, points out Nicolas Gellé, an Argon & Co partner who leads the Knowledge Management efforts.
Guilhem Delorme hints at the exciting road ahead: “We’ll soon be releasing a new version of EDGAr, enabling the users to create AI assistants on their own documents, in just a few clicks. It’ll be fascinating to see how Argonauts leverage these capabilities on their day-to-day tasks !”
Recent discussions with our Clients reveal the broad applicability of such tools. They extend beyond the realms of knowledge management for consulting firms. With this foresight, we’ve designed EDGAr not as a standalone solution but as a modular one, with core functionalities ready to be integrated seamlessly into our clients’ IT infrastructures.
In this journey of technological evolution, EDGAr stands as a testament to Argon & Co’s vision of innovation – not just for us, but for every client we serve.
Find out more about IRIS by Argon & Co
Contact us : iris.france@argonandco.com
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