12,7%
of Quebec businesses used AI for production purposes in 2025.
Institut de la statistique du Québec, 2025
Autonomous AI agents for small business
Your business, amplified by intelligent agents.
Somben Systems builds autonomous AI agents for small and medium-sized businesses: customer relations, commercial follow-up, business intelligence, predictive alerts and back-office automation. The goal isn’t simply to answer messages — it’s to give your business back time, continuity and clarity.
- Voice + text
- 24/7
- Connected to your tools
- Configurable human approval
Available in Montreal · French + English · Quebec · Canada
The Problem
The real cost isn’t the tool. It’s the time that slips away.
In a small business, the problem is almost never a poorly framed “big strategic question.” The problem is the quiet accumulation of same repetitive tasks: answering messages, following up, rescheduling appointments, re-entering information, tracking a delay, hunting down a document, piecing together data that doesn’t connect.
Too many routine requests
Calls, emails, messages, recurring questions, first inquiries, availability checks: your team stays buried in a constant stream of small requests.
Inconsistent follow-up
Many opportunities come down to a timely nudge. Without a system, follow-up depends on human memory that’s already stretched thin.
No early warning system
Late payments, slowing response rates, significant reductions in avoidable no-shows depending on context, a slowing pipeline, rising workload: the signals are there, but they often go unnoticed.
Tools that don’t work together
CRM, calendar, email, spreadsheets, forms, messaging apps: everything works in its own silo, and your business pays the friction cost.
The Solution
An agent that actually works — not a decorative chatbot.
A good agent doesn’t just reply. It understands, cross-references, triggers actions, documents its steps and stops when a sensitive decision needs to stay with a human.
Consistent first contact
The agent handles the first point of contact — written or voice — with a consistent tone and continuous availability.
- FAQs, hours, pricing, directions
- Incoming messages outside business hours
- Continuity from one conversation to the next
Follow up without dropping the ball
Client follow-ups, reminders, confirmations, post-appointment messages: the agent brings a reliable rhythm.
- Appointment reminders
- Simple commercial follow-ups
- Automated follow-through based on clear rules
Catch early signals
Beyond automation, the agent can produce business intelligence you can actually use.
- Detection of delays or payment risk
- Alerts on unusual activity
- Regular digests and summaries
Act within your tools
It doesn’t replace your existing environment — it orchestrates it. It writes, updates, sorts, notifies and routes.
- CRM, email, calendar, forms, databases
- Automatic task creation and updates
- Clear record of all actions
Stay in control of what matters
You stay in control of high-stakes decisions: amounts, commitments, sensitive messages, business exceptions.
- Configurable approval thresholds
- Human escalation
- Full action traceability
Improve over time
A useful agent is one you can steer. We monitor it, correct it, enrich it and grow it alongside your business.
- Monthly review
- Scenario refinement
- New use cases on request
Impact by Industry
Concrete, documented results in your field.
Every industry has its repetitive tasks, its hidden costs and clients who go unserved outside business hours. Here are examples of possible use cases by sector: we’ve mapped the real impact of AI agents across several fields — with figures drawn from studies and field deployments: time saved, better follow-through, fewer no-shows, better-qualified leads and data that actually gets used.
Appointments and patient continuity
Booking, reminders, FAQs, simple pre-screening, after-hours request handling.
−67%No-shows
45 minSaved per day
Follow-up and proactive reminders
Due date reminders, information collection, document reminders, periodic summaries, identifying recurring delays.
−30%Manual entry
+40%Collections
Lead qualification and response speed
Immediate lead response, initial screening, appointment booking, re-qualification and re-engagement of cold contacts.
×3Qualified leads
24/7Availability
Missed calls and quotes
Automatic callback, needs assessment, qualification, quote preparation and clean handoff to the field team.
+35%Quotes converted
−1h30Admin per day
Customer service, carts and client follow-up
Repetitive questions, post-purchase support, simple incidents, cart recovery and demand spike signals.
+15%Carts recovered
−90%Repetitive support
Screening, reminders and cadence
Pre-screening, candidate or learner reminders, information delivery and automated tracking at every step.
23h → 20minApplication screening
×4Learners followed
Pre-screening and file management
Intake, document collection, urgency triage, summary preparation and document follow-ups.
J+0First triage
1Centralized file
Order tracking and alerts
Order status, recurring requests, stock or delay alerts, daily summaries and internal coordination.
24/7Client status
J-1Delay alert
Requests, volunteers and follow-up
Answering frequent inquiries, activity sign-ups, member reminders, volunteer coordination and simple reporting.
1Unified inbox
+ clairMember tracking
Our Approach
Built for you.
Maintained with us.
We don’t deliver an isolated technical object. Every agent is custom-built, deployed and kept running by our team — you get results, not an extra technical burden.
Analysis & Design
We understand your business before we touch the technology. Where are the bottlenecks? Which decisions keep repeating? Where does time go?
- Sessions with your key stakeholders
- Process mapping and opportunity audit
- Custom AI agent architecture
- ROI projection specific to your business
Build & Deployment
We build your agent from scratch — integrating your tools, training it on your context and deploying it into your real workflows.
- Full build on our infrastructure
- Integration with your existing tools
- Supervised testing with your team
- Production deployment and full briefing
Maintenance & Growth
Your agent isn’t a fixed product — it’s a managed service. We monitor, improve and enrich it as your business grows.
- Monthly performance review and reporting
- Proactive improvements and updates
- New capabilities added on request
- A dedicated point of contact, always
The Origin
A name rooted in memory — and a very concrete promise.
“Somben — the swift, efficient, precise man.”
A figure of significance among the Diola people of the Mof Evvi, Casamance, Senegal.
The name Somben isn’t invented. It belongs to a real historical figure from the Diola community of the Mof Evvi, in Lower Casamance, Senegal — a man known for his speed, his efficiency, his ability to act with precision. Those same qualities are what we aim to bring to every agent we deploy.
This project also carries a deeper purpose: preserving Diola oral memory through technology. A tradition that was never written down — but that can now be passed on in other ways.
The Team
Two projects. One commitment to transmission.
Somben Systems brings together two distinct projects: advisory and support for small businesses undergoing digital transformation, and a project to preserve the memory of the oral Diola society of the Mof Evvi, in Casamance, Senegal. Two different paths, one shared method: clarify, structure, transmit and make systems genuinely useful.
Founders · Somben Systems
Mathieu Hélias & Somben
Senior IT Business Analyst with over 14 years of experience in digital transformation, business scoping and portfolio management for large organizations.
Together with Somben, the project’s central persona, he carries a straightforward promise: turning business complexity into systems that are useful, measurable and maintainable.
Operational team
Business Director
Justin Boss
Commercial scoping, offer coherence, ambition level, deal assessment and business priorities.
Offer · sales · positioning
AI Technical Lead
Dave Inarush
n8n workflows, APIs, integrations, automations, deployment and production.
n8n · API · orchestration
Client Relations
Niafia Kolobane
Intake, coordination, smooth communication, human follow-up and client-side clarity.
Client relations · coordination
Memory and transmission project
Two initiatives feed this dimension: the Diola Translation App, which works to make the Diola Bandial language more accessible, and Resurrection Collective, which gathers the words and memories of those still here in order to preserve a living memory.
Field partners · Mof Evvi, Casamance
Casamance team
Civil society actors from the Mof Evvi: translators, analysts, software practitioners, artists, musicians, teachers and other field relays.
Mof Evvi · translation · fieldwork · living memory
Anthropological Reference
Professor Paolo Palmeri
Author of Retour dans un village Diola de Casamance (published in French), with research begun in 1972. Field memory, Mof Evvi and academic depth.
Research · Mof Evvi · field memory
Pricing
Accessible to start. Solid enough to last.
The offer is straightforward to read, while leaving room for your actual scope: a starter agent, a complete agent, a process + data level, or a fully custom build.
Your first AI agent
2 500 $setup · then $200 / month
Indicative price — finalized during scoping.
- Automated responses
- FAQs and reminders
- 1 main channel
- Basic follow-up
- Monthly billing after setup
- Support included
Ideal to get started with a single task.
The AI agent connected to your business
4 500 $setup · then $400 / month
Indicative price — finalized during scoping.
- Appointments and client follow-up
- FAQs and automated follow-ups
- Voice + text
- Connected to your tools: CRM, calendar, forms
- Monthly billing after setup
- Smart conversation history
The most well-rounded system for a growing small business.
Operational management
7 500 $setup · then $650 / month
Indicative price — finalized during scoping.
- Up to 5 integrations
- Business workflow automation
- Monthly dashboard
- Smart alerts
- Monthly billing after setup
- Early signal detection
For SMBs that want to get ahead instead of falling behind.
Fully custom
Quotewithin 48 hours
Indicative price — finalized during scoping.
- Multiple specialized agents
- Cross-team automation
- Advanced integrations
- Training and support
- Monthly billing after setup
- Dedicated support
For complex operations or multi-department environments.
AI Diagnostic
An assessment of your operations, identifying the critical points where AI can create value and prioritizing use cases.
Starting at $1,250 / day, depending on scope.
Practical AI Training
Individual or team sessions, from introductory to advanced usage, with concrete examples tailored to your business.
Starting at $750 for a half-day or $1,500 / day.
Contact
Your project deserves a real conversation.
The first conversation is about identifying two or three places where an agent can save time, improve continuity or bring clarity. No big pitch. Just a clear starting point.
Response within 24 hours. The simplest way is to write directly by email. If the topic is a fit, we’ll follow up by call or message.
If you already have a document, a spec sheet, a data export or an internal note, you can send it separately by email.
One last visual marker: the Somben symbol reflects the project’s core idea — connecting, illuminating and moving useful information forward.
Listen to the atmosphere
Sources for the statistics shown on this page: Institut de la statistique du Québec and Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).
AI in Business
Institut de la statistique du Québec · Data on the use of artificial intelligence in business (in French).
LIFT AI for SMBs
Business Development Bank of Canada · Program and data on AI adoption by Canadian SMBs.
AI: a must for Canadian businesses
Business Development Bank of Canada · Study on the real — and sometimes invisible — use of AI in Canadian businesses.
Retour dans un village Diola de Casamance
Paolo Palmeri · Les Diola du Mof Evvi: the land of the rain king in Senegal · 2nd ed. · Paris, L’Harmattan, 2022 · ISBN 978-2-14-029343-6 (published in French). Original edition: L’Harmattan, 1995.