A brand, importer or manufacturer that sells through dealers gets the same technical questions every day: which part fits this serial number, what a fault code means, what the warranty covers, how a setting is made. For 2027 our pick is SimplyBoost, because it answers from the network's own manuals, parts catalogues and service bulletins, inside a signed-in dealer portal, on the website and on WhatsApp, in Dutch, French, German, Spanish and English. Nine other tools follow, each with the buyer it suits better.
This list is written for the IT manager, informatiemanager or head of service at a brand or importer of 250 to 5,000 FTE in the Netherlands or Flanders. Disclosure: Crux Digits publishes this list and SimplyBoost is listed first. SimplyBoost is our own product, built by the team behind Crux Digits. We say why, and who the others are better for. Crux Digits builds AI systems alongside your ICT partner; we do not run helpdesks, hosting or IT management.
Which AI support tool fits a dealer network best in 2027?
The best fit depends on where the answer lives: in documents, in a parts catalogue, in a repair procedure or in a live system.
If a manual, parts list or service bulletin already answers most dealer questions, a document-grounded assistant with a dealer portal and handover is the shortest route: that is SimplyBoost. If the hard part is identifying a part from a photo or a worn label, a parts tool such as Partium or Documoto fits better. If the work is guiding a repair over the phone, Aquant is built for it. If Zendesk, Intercom or Salesforce already runs your service desk, start with the AI that platform sells, where your tickets already are.
Prices appear only where the vendor publishes them, and every entry links the vendor's own page.
How did we choose the tools on this list?
We kept tools that answer from a company's own content, verified on each vendor's own website on 29 October 2026.
Four criteria applied. First, the tool answers from your own documentation (manuals, parts catalogues, bulletins, a help centre), not from general knowledge. Second, it can serve more than one audience: owners, dealers, installers or your own staff. Third, it hands a conversation to a person or a ticketing system with the context attached. Fourth, its capabilities are published on its own site. We used no ratings, review counts or customer logos, and we left out tools we could not verify.
This list is not a ranking beyond our own pick. SimplyBoost is first, with the reason stated; the entries after it are in alphabetical order.
Why is SimplyBoost our pick for brands, importers and dealer networks?
SimplyBoost is built for this exact pattern: dealer questions answered from your own documents, with warranty claims and quotes passed to people.
Disclosure: Crux Digits publishes this list and SimplyBoost is listed first. SimplyBoost is our own product, built by the team behind Crux Digits. We list it first because its published features match the dealer-network job point for point.
Its dealer networks page states that the agent learns parts catalogues, workshop manuals, spec sheets, service bulletins, price lists and homologation documents, as PDFs (scanned ones too), Word files, CSVs and text, up to 50 MB per file. It answers only from those files, says so when nothing covers the question, and replies in the language the dealer writes in, or in a fixed language: Dutch, French, German, Spanish or English. Warranty claims, quotes and custom requests go to your team in Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias or a Slack thread, with the full conversation attached.
For a dealer portal, the chat can run on signed-in pages only, dealers are recognised by their verified email, and one call resets the chat when a dealer signs out, so a shared workshop computer starts clean. Every account includes three AI agents with their own documents and channels, for example the public website, the dealer portal and your own team. A Missing answers list shows the questions no file covered, which becomes the to-do list for your technical writers.
Published prices on simplyboost.io/pricing: Starter €39 a month for 500 AI replies, Growth €89 for 2,000 and Pro €169 for 6,000, with a 7-day trial of 100 AI replies. Networks with many dealers usually take the enterprise plan, which adds more replies, a dedicated account manager and help with the rollout across dealers.
Best for: a brand or importer whose dealer questions are answered by its own documentation, and who wants a portal agent, a public agent and a team agent from one knowledge base. Not the best choice when most dealers phone in (its published channels are website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and the portal), when parts must be recognised from a photo, or when live ERP stock and warranty status must be in the answer without a custom integration.
Which other tools are worth a look, and for whom?
Nine tools in alphabetical order, each described from its own website, each with the buyer it serves better than SimplyBoost.
Aquant
Aquant describes itself as conversational AI for physical product support, built for companies that manufacture physical products rather than for order-status questions. It serves field technicians, call centres and customer self-service, and guides repairs over the phone with visual assistance. Best for: a manufacturer whose service desk is phone-led and whose main problem is getting a repair right the first time, in industrial equipment, home appliances or medical devices.
Documoto
Documoto is a SaaS platform for interactive parts catalogues: linked bills of materials, diagrams and part details, an aftermarket content library with access controls for dealers, distributors and technicians, and online orders and quotes. It states that it serves brands in 27 languages, and it connects to ERP and EAM systems through APIs and widgets. Best for: a manufacturer whose parts catalogue must first become interactive and orderable.
Intercom Fin
Fin is Intercom's AI agent. It runs inside the Intercom helpdesk or on top of another helpdesk such as Salesforce, Freshdesk, HubSpot or Zendesk, and its listed channels include voice, chat, email, social and Slack. Its pricing page states $0.99 per outcome, with a minimum of 50 outcomes a month when Fin runs on another helpdesk. Best for: a service organisation that wants to keep its current helpdesk and pay per resolved outcome rather than per plan.
Kapa
Kapa connects documentation, tickets, wikis and more than 30 other sources and turns them into AI agents for users and colleagues, with a retrieval API and an MCP server for teams that build their own agents. It states SOC 2 Type II, and its pricing page lists a free 14-day trial, a usage-based Growth plan and a custom Enterprise plan. Best for: a brand with large, fast-changing technical documentation and an internal team that wants one retrieval engine behind several agents.
Partium
Partium offers spare-parts search for OEMs and machine builders that runs inside the parts portal they already have. Parts desks, dealers and customers identify a part from a photo, a nameplate label, a barcode or QR code, a few words or the bill of materials. Best for: an OEM whose dealers lose time identifying the part in the first place, when requests arrive as photos or worn labels.
Salesforce Agentforce
Salesforce positions Manufacturing Cloud as one system for sales, service and channel operations, with Agentforce for manufacturing as its AI layer and partner relationship management for distributors. Best for: a manufacturer that already runs service, dealer management or partner portals on Salesforce and wants the AI inside that data model rather than next to it.
Trengo
Trengo was founded in Utrecht in 2017, according to its about page, and combines WhatsApp, email, live chat, social and voice in one shared inbox, with AI agents for repetitive questions. Best for: a service team juggling many channels in many inboxes that wants the inbox and the AI in one Dutch product.
Watermelon
Watermelon is built in the Netherlands, states ISO 27001 certification and EU data hosting, and runs one AI agent across website chat, email, phone, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. Its pricing page lists Starter at €99 a month for 250 conversations, recognition of logged-in users from the Advanced plan at €199, and an Enterprise plan with SLA and uptime guarantees. Best for: an organisation whose procurement asks for ISO 27001 and an SLA up front, or that wants the phone line in the same agent.
Zendesk
Zendesk AI agents work on messaging, email and voice, ground answers in the help centre and in external sources such as Google Drive or PDFs, and take actions in connected systems. Zendesk states support for 80 languages. Best for: a service desk already on Zendesk that wants the AI inside its existing tickets, macros and reporting. SimplyBoost also hands over to Zendesk, so the two can run side by side.
What does a dealer portal need from an AI assistant?
A dealer portal assistant needs seven things: verified identity, separate libraries, model before answer, citations, handover fields, a sign-out reset and a gap list.
Verified identity: the assistant knows the person is a dealer before it answers from dealer-only documents, for example through a verified email. Separate libraries: public owner documents for the website, service manuals and price lists for the portal, internal procedures for your own staff. Model before answer: when documents differ per model year or serial range, the assistant asks for the model or chassis number first.
Citations: every technical answer names document, revision and section, so a technician can check it at the machine. Handover fields: a warranty claim arrives with dealer, country, model, serial number, part number, fault code and steps already tried. Sign-out reset: a shared workshop computer starts clean for the next person. Gap list: the questions no document answered go to the technical writers every week.
Ask each vendor to show all seven on your own documents during the trial. A tool that lets a public visitor reach dealer-only documents fails, whatever else it does well.
How should Dutch, French and German dealers be answered from one knowledge base?
Keep one source library and let the assistant answer in the dealer's language, rather than maintaining three translated knowledge bases.
A Benelux and DACH network serves Dutch, French and German speakers, in Belgium often within one country. Translating every manual and bulletin three times creates three versions that drift apart after the next revision. Check three things in a trial: does the tool answer in the language the dealer writes in; can you fix one language per agent when a market requires it; and does the cited source keep its original title, so the technician can find the page.
SimplyBoost lists Dutch, French, German, Spanish and English as fixed languages and otherwise replies in the dealer's language. Zendesk states 80 languages for its AI agents. Watermelon lists more than 100 languages for building and testing an agent. Documoto states 27 languages for its catalogue platform.
Which 2027 rules affect a support assistant for technical products?
Two EU rules matter: AI Act Article 50 on disclosing AI, and the Machinery Regulation, which applies from 20 January 2027.
Article 50(1) of the AI Act requires that AI systems interacting directly with people are designed so those people are informed they are dealing with an AI system, unless that is obvious. Under Article 113 the regulation applies from 2 August 2026, so a dealer assistant should open with a clear line saying it is an AI assistant.
The Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 applies on a mandatory basis from 20 January 2027 and clarifies when instructions for use can be provided in digital format. For a machinery brand, the versioned, per-model library of digital instructions it keeps for that regulation is the same library a support assistant should answer from. Build it once and use it twice.
How do you choose between these tools in one afternoon?
Answer four questions in order; the first yes points to the tool to trial first.
One: does your current helpdesk vendor already sell an AI agent you can switch on with your tickets in it? Then trial Zendesk AI agents, Intercom Fin or Salesforce Agentforce first. Two: is the hardest step identifying the part, from a photo, a label or a bill of materials? Then look at Partium, or at Documoto if the catalogue itself is not yet interactive. Three: is the work mostly repair guidance over the phone? Then Aquant.
Four: are the answers in your manuals, catalogues and bulletins, needed in several languages, on a dealer portal and on WhatsApp? Then SimplyBoost. Choose Kapa if an internal team wants to build its own agents on a retrieval engine, and Trengo or Watermelon if a shared inbox, or ISO 27001 and an SLA, come first.
When is a document tool not enough, and where does Crux Digits fit?
When the answer must come from a live system, such as ERP stock, warranty status or a serial register, you need a custom integration.
No tool on this list knows your stock, your dealer prices or your warranty register until someone connects it. Crux Digits builds that part alongside your ICT partner, in three fixed steps: an AI audit at €2,500, a Production-ready MVP at €20,000 and production from €50,000, all excluding VAT, with the code handed over to you. Your ICT partner keeps the infrastructure and the helpdesk platform. We work from Utrecht, in English and Dutch.
For the wider buy-or-build choice in customer service, see AI customer support: buy or build. For the twelve trades we cover, from heat pumps to forklifts, see AI assistant for dealer networks, and for the product itself, SimplyBoost for dealer networks.
Last updated: 29 October 2026.
SimplyBoost, our own product, answers from your documents on website chat and WhatsApp. When the answer has to come from your own systems, we build that part.
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