AI-first company

Company case

SAM: a two-person advisory firm cut the paperwork on each client file from six hours to two and a half

A two-person firm that advises clients on retirement turned each client file into a fixed sequence of steps and gave the routine ones to AI. Administrative time per file fell from about six hours to two and a half. Set-up cost about €3,000 and 60 hours, and the adviser still approves important letters.

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Outcome Company-reported result

The company published the figures itself.

In the guide Micro and small businesses

At a glance

Company
SAMRetirement advisory firm for individuals and business owners
Size
Micro and small (1–49 employees) The official case page describes the firm as having two people.
Industry
Professional services
Where and when
France. Six months of use, published May 2026.
Who produced the figures
The company itselfThe figures are the firm’s own, published by France Num, the French government’s programme for the digital transformation of small firms. The firm was a finalist for the 2025 AI prize of the small-business federation CPME.

What they did

SAM advises individuals and business owners on retirement: pension rights, the timing of retirement, buying back contribution periods. The founder set it up in 2020. He describes the work before the change as run “by emails and Excel files”, with a risk of forgetting things, constant chasing and documents arriving in every format.

The idea came from his daughter, then 15, who watched him work during a school holiday and offered to help him simplify it. Together they built a system from ready-made parts:

  • an automation tool that needs no programming, running on the firm’s own server;
  • a library of the firm’s reference documents, forms, letter templates and common questions, which the AI draws on when it writes;
  • several general AI models.

The work is split between AI “agents”, each with one job:

  • Collecting. It asks the client for documents, sends reminders by email or text, checks what arrives and reports what is missing.
  • Writing. It drafts letters to pension funds, summaries of the client’s situation and explanations for the client.
  • Tracking. It keeps a log, updates the status of each file and raises anything that is stuck.

When a file is opened, the client fills in an online questionnaire. From then on each file follows a set process, with steps, expected documents and target dates.

The numbers

After six months of use:

  • Administrative time per file: from about 6 hours to 2.5 hours, a 58% cut.
  • Time to collect the key documents: from 6 weeks to 3.5 weeks.
  • Files still incomplete after 15 days: from 30% to 8%.
  • Prospects who became clients: from 28% to 41%.
  • Client satisfaction: from 4.2 to 4.7 out of 5.
  • Cost per file down by an estimated 30–35%.
  • About 70% of reminders are sent by the AI without anyone stepping in.

What it cost:

  • About €3,000 to set up the server.
  • Nearly €650 a month in AI licences.
  • About 60 hours of initial set-up work.

What the case shows

  • A two-person firm did this with ready-made tools, including an automation tool that needs no programming.
  • The process was redesigned first. Every file became the same sequence of steps. That is what made it possible to hand steps to AI.
  • The gain was in the paperwork around the advice. Chasing documents and drafting standard letters went to AI. The advice stayed with the adviser.
  • The running cost is real. €650 a month is a large sum for two people. The published account says the gains more than cover it.
  • Sensitive data needed its own rules from the start.

What this says about the practices

Practices the company applied

Sources

  1. France Num (26 May 2026). Dans les Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, une entreprise de conseil retraite déploie des agents IA pour automatiser le traitement de ses dossiers. Case page, in French. francenum.gouv.fr