Why I stopped bolting retrieval onto the prompt and started handing it to the agent as a tool.

The problem every sales team has

Every services company has the same quiet problem. Over the years it writes hundreds of proposals, RFP responses, capability decks and case studies. Each one holds hard-won knowledge: how a similar deal was priced, which team was proposed, which accelerator was used, what the client actually asked for.

Almost none of it can be found when it's needed.

It lives in SharePoint folders, Teams channels, email attachments and people's laptops. The person who wrote the winning proposal three years ago has moved on. A new bid starts from a blank page.

The fix is a governed sales knowledge store. Every document is linked to a client, and to an opportunity or project when one is known. Every extracted fact is cited to the slide or page it came from.…