The verdict in three sentences
For a 600-employee group, in Paris or Berlin, an internal AI assistant answering from 8,000 procedure documents costs between EUR 25,000 and 50,000 excl. VAT to build, then EUR 400 to 1,500 excl. VAT per month in usage and hosting. Its value rests on three non-negotiable requirements: each answer cites its sources, the assistant respects existing access rights and data stays hosted in the European Union. A GDPR data protection impact assessment and an EU AI Act classification must be completed before rollout, which adds two to three weeks to the schedule but prevents a block by the DPO or the works council, a key stakeholder in Germany.
What the assistant does and what it costs
The assistant relies on search across your documents (a technique called RAG): it finds the relevant passages, drafts an answer and links back to the source document. It does not train on your data and does not answer beyond what the data contains.
| Work package | Content | Budget excl. VAT | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scoping and governance | Priority use cases, sources, content owners, update rules | EUR 3,000 to 5,000 | 2 weeks |
| Document connectors | SharePoint, Google Drive, Confluence, intranet, daily sync | EUR 5,000 to 10,000 | 2 weeks |
| Indexing and search | Chunking, hybrid search, source citation, version handling | EUR 6,000 to 12,000 | 3 weeks |
| Access rights | Inheriting Microsoft 365 or Google permissions, filtering by profile | EUR 4,000 to 8,000 | 2 weeks |
| Interface | Web chat, Teams integration, user feedback on each answer | EUR 3,000 to 7,000 | 2 weeks |
| Compliance and acceptance | DPIA, records, tests on 200 real questions, logging | EUR 4,000 to 8,000 | 2 weeks |
| Total | EUR 25,000 to 50,000 | 10 to 12 weeks |
Some packages run in parallel, hence a schedule shorter than the sum of durations. The monthly cost depends mainly on question volume.
| Monthly usage | Questions per month | AI model cost | EU hosting and maintenance | Total excl. VAT per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pilot, one department | 2,000 | EUR 60 | EUR 340 | EUR 400 |
| Three departments | 8,000 | EUR 240 | EUR 560 | EUR 800 |
| Whole group | 20,000 | EUR 600 | EUR 900 | EUR 1,500 |
| Whole group with self-hosted model | 20,000 | Included | EUR 2,500 to 3,500 | EUR 2,500 to 3,500 |
The self-hosted option is only useful if internal policy rejects any external model provider, even hosted in Europe. In most cases, a model accessed through a cloud provider in an EU region, with a contractual commitment not to reuse data, is enough.
GDPR and AI Act: what must be documented
| Requirement | What it means for the assistant | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| GDPR legal basis | Legitimate interest, informing employees | DPO and HR |
| Impact assessment (DPIA) | Recommended as soon as HR or personal documents are indexed | DPO |
| Data minimisation | Exclude individual HR files and health data from the index | Content owners |
| Hosting | Data and processing in the EU, processors listed | IT department |
| AI Act, transparency | Clearly tell users they are interacting with an AI | Product |
| AI Act, classification | Document use outside high-risk categories, unless used for hiring or appraisal | Legal |
| Employee representatives | Information and consultation on new technology (works council in Germany, CSE in France) | HR |
The AI Act transparency obligation applies fully from August 2026. An internal document assistant is not classified as high risk, but it becomes so if it is used to assess employees or screen candidates, which must be explicitly excluded from scope.
Mini case study
Sophie, COO of a 600-employee services group in Paris, finds that her support and quality teams spend an average of 25 minutes a day looking for a procedure or asking a colleague.
- Target population in year one: 250 employees.
- Estimated time saved: 10 minutes per day per person, i.e. 250 x 10 min x 210 days = 8,750 hours per year.
- Value: 8,750 hours x EUR 40 loaded hourly cost = EUR 350,000 per year.
- Year-one cost: EUR 38,000 excl. VAT build + 12 x EUR 800 = EUR 47,600.
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Even with a real gain three times lower, the assistant pays back in under 6 months. The real risk lies elsewhere: outdated documents produce outdated answers, hence the importance of content owners named during scoping.
FAQ
Can the assistant make up answers?
The risk is reduced, not zero. The assistant only answers from retrieved passages and displays the source, so it can be checked in one click. In our acceptance tests, the rate of unsourced answers is kept under 2%.
Will an intern see management documents?
No. The assistant inherits SharePoint or Google Drive permissions at the time of the question. A document the user cannot access is never used in their answer.
Is a DPIA mandatory?
It is strongly recommended as soon as the index contains personal data, which is almost always the case. Budget EUR 3,000 to 5,000 and two weeks if run with your DPO.
Can we start with a single department?
Yes, that is the recommended approach. A pilot on 1,000 documents and one department costs EUR 12,000 to 18,000 excl. VAT and is delivered in 6 weeks, before extending to the group.
Are documents sent to a US provider?
Not necessarily. We favour models available in an EU region, with contractual no-retention clauses, or a European model. The choice is documented in the record of processing.
Let's scope your project. Describe your document sources, the number of target users and your GDPR constraints, and we will price an assistant between EUR 25,000 and 50,000 excl. VAT, with a pilot possible in 6 weeks. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
