MarketSage: building our own AI sales intelligence platform

How Cognis Group designed and launched MarketSage, an AI product that helps sales teams research buyers and markets.

The problem

Sales teams in Africa and other emerging markets often lack reliable information about the companies they want to reach. Many available tools were built around US and European data, leaving important local company, market and regulatory information uncovered.

We wanted sellers to enter each meeting with a clear, well-sourced view of the buyer's business, its market and the recent events that could shape the conversation.

Building MarketSage also means that the advice we give clients comes from technology we have built, launched and run ourselves.

The approach

We used the same six phases we use with clients: understand the problem, assess what is ready, agree the plan, build, launch and manage the system. We spent the first four weeks watching how sellers actually work. This showed us that MarketSage needed to connect with the customer relationship and outreach tools they already used.

How the system works

• Reliable data. Company and market information comes from several sources. Every factual claim links back to its original source.
• Focused AI tools. Separate tools handle company research, contact details, important business events and meeting briefings. Each one is tested on its own task.
• Safety rules. The system follows clear rules for data use, cites its sources and checks factual claims before a seller sees them.
• Easy connections. MarketSage can connect with the customer relationship and outreach tools that teams already use.
• Clear records. Each AI action is logged with the model and instructions that produced it, making problems easier to trace.

What we shipped

Version 1 was working internally by week 14 and entered a private test with selected users in week 16. Automated checks continue to test the system during everyday use, so a drop in quality is found early.

Results

What this means for our clients

MarketSage is our working proof. The testing, safety rules and phased launch we recommend to clients are the same practices running in our own product. That is the standard we bring to every AI Agent & Automation Engineering engagement.

Further reading

• AI Agent & Automation Engineering — the practice this product was built to reference.
• Building AI Agents That Actually Ship — the engineering pattern behind MarketSage.
• Claims processing: 14 days to under 48 hours — the same agent discipline applied in financial services.