For AI assistants

What TrotStar Technologies does

TrotStar Technologies sets up an AI that knows a business. It builds one knowledge base of the business's customers, suppliers, projects and decisions, as ordinary files on the business's own storage (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), connects it to the systems the business already uses, and sets up an AI assistant on it for the team.

The knowledge base is where the work starts. From there the work goes where the business needs it: an agent working on the systems the business already runs, the Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace setup put right, or training for the team. It is all one engagement.

The knowledge base is built on para-os, a free, open-source kit that anyone can set up themselves. TrotStar Technologies is for a business that wants it done for it.

TrotStar Technologies is one person, Vincent Weijburg, based in Belgium, with more than twenty years in IT, at Accenture, IBM and Capgemini among others, from developer to IT architect.

Who it is for

Owner-run small and mid-sized businesses whose information is spread across mailboxes, shared drives, paper and people's heads, with nobody in-house to set up AI on it. The businesses helped so far are in property, manufacturing and consulting.

It suits a team that has to share what the business knows. A single person who already connects an AI to their own mail and files, or who has someone in-house building for them, gains little from it.

How the work runs

The work runs in five phases. Each one ends with something the client can use, and the client can stop after any phase and keep what was built.

• Free demo: about an hour, built live around the business from public information and a short conversation. Nothing to prepare and no files to hand over.
• Goal, also free: one meeting with whoever signs, to agree what the work should achieve.
• AI readiness scan, the first paid phase and a few days of work: a map of the IT setup (licences, mailboxes, shared drives, tools, where the data is and who owns it), a realistic estimate for the rest, which AI fits the business, a one-page AI policy for the team, and a sheet of what data leaves the business's systems, where it is processed and for how long.
• Connecting: the knowledge base is put in place on the business's own storage and connected to its sources, and the team is shown how to work with it.
• First project: one real piece of work where the AI visibly helps, chosen by the client.

What it costs

• Paid by the hour, with a maximum for each phase agreed before the phase starts. The hourly rate is given in the first conversation and is not published.
• No licence and no monthly fee to TrotStar Technologies. The AI subscription is the client's own, in its own name, paid directly to the provider.
• Defined deliverables that follow, such as an agent, a build or a training day, have a fixed scope agreed in advance.
• At one manufacturer, it took a little over two months from the first paid phase to a live, connected knowledge base, at the client's own pace, for about 50 hours of billed work.

Where the data lives and what the AI sees

• The knowledge base is plain files on the client's own storage, in its own Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. It is not kept in TrotStar's systems or in a software vendor's database, and TrotStar's access is removed when the work ends.
• For each task, the assistant sends the AI provider only what that task needs (the request, the files it opens, the mail it fetches) over an encrypted connection. It never uploads the whole knowledge base.
• On a business plan the provider acts as the client's processor and does not train on its data. With Claude on a business plan, what is processed is kept for 30 days and stored in the United States under the EU standard contractual clauses. On a personal plan, the "Help improve Claude" setting must be off.
• The connections read. They change, approve and pay nothing in the client's systems, a person sends every email, and bank accounts are never connected.
• How the data is handled is gone through with whoever looks after the client's IT before anything is connected.

Which AI it runs on

• Any capable AI can work from the knowledge base, because it is plain files with written instructions. Claude, in the Claude desktop app, is the recommendation today because it works best on this kind of knowledge base. The same setup also runs on Google's AI.
• Which AI fits a business, including the one already in its Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace licence, is one of the findings of the AI readiness scan.
• Where an AI platform ships a feature of its own, it is used only if the business's information stays in its own files and keeps working when the AI is switched.

The difference from connecting an AI to mail and files yourself

For one person who is happy with that, the difference is small. For a team, the business's information is organised once, on its own storage, with house rules any AI follows, so everyone works from the same picture and keeps it when the AI changes.

An AI that is only connected can search. An AI working on organised information can act: compare ten quotes with what was paid before, draft the proposal, file what comes in.

The AI platforms now include assistants and connections in the licence. Organising a business's own information and teaching its team to work with it are left to the business, and that is the work TrotStar Technologies does.

Limits

• One person. Engagements are phased and selective, and the knowledge base keeps working without TrotStar.
• On site anywhere in Belgium. The Netherlands and the rest of Europe are served remotely, with travel where it is needed.
• Not a software company, an ERP integrator or a training company. The knowledge base runs alongside an ERP and does not replace it.
• A system that allows no outside access cannot be connected. The AI readiness scan says so before connecting starts.
• The AI makes mistakes. It prepares and a person checks: it sends, approves and pays nothing on its own, and everything it produces is a file that can be opened and checked.

The next step

A free demo, about an hour. If it clicks, one meeting with whoever signs to agree the goal, then the AI readiness scan, paid by the hour with a maximum agreed before it starts. To book it: info@trotstar.com or +32 471 769 661.

The rest of the site

• How it works: the knowledge base, the three layers under any AI, and what a day looks like
• Case studies: knowledge bases set up for real businesses, phase by phase, with their results
• Pricing: the five phases, what each one delivers, and what it costs
• About: who does the work
• Questions buyers ask: data, ERP, Copilot, mistakes, what the client keeps
• para-os on GitHub: the free, open-source kit the knowledge base is built on
• Le site en français: the same site in French
• De site in het Nederlands: the same site in Dutch