Rise SA Business Solutions has introduced Rise Socrates, an AI-powered assistant available 24/7 in two of the company’s business applications. Business doesn’t stop when the support team clocks out. Questions arise, errors appear and employees still need to get their work done. Rise SA believes that help should always be within reach, not only during working hours.
AI is not new to the Rise SA team. For more than a year and a half, the company has been using tools such as GPT, Cursor and Claude in software development and other areas of its work. The team also has experience connecting Qwen and DeepSeek. Building on this experience, the company decided to bring AI closer to users.
This is how Ilia Shikhov, Founder of Rise SA Business Solutions, sees the role of Rise Socrates: “Business software should make everyday work easier, not add another layer of complexity. We want users to spend less time looking for information and more time focusing on their actual work. That’s the idea behind Rise Socrates.”
What can Rise Socrates do?
Integrated directly into the 1C environment, Rise Socrates allows users to ask questions in their own words and get answers based on information from their business system. They no longer need to spend time searching through help documentation to find what they need.
One thing that sets Rise Socrates apart is its ability to understand each customer’s specific system. The assistant can analyse current system settings and access source code, including individual customisations. The code is stored in a separate directory and is available to the assistant in read-only mode; Rise Socrates cannot change it.
When answering questions about business data, Rise Socrates uses the logged-in user’s permissions. It can access only the information available to that user. Customer data is hosted on Rise SA’s public cloud infrastructure.
Internal measurements by Rise SA consultants found that, on average, experienced consultants reduced the time needed to find an answer by a factor of 4.5 using Rise Socrates. For users who are less familiar with the system, the assistant can take on the consultation, answering their questions based on the system’s set-up and the information they are authorised to access.
Rise Socrates in action.
From finding business information to helping with everyday operations, Rise Socrates can assist with a variety of tasks:
- Business data and reports. Users can find specific information in the system, check inventory balances for a particular warehouse or learn how to configure a report to show un-posted sales documents for a selected period.
- Documents and daily operations. The assistant can explain how to process a sales return or help identify why an invoice cannot be posted.
- Queries and code. Users can describe the information they need and ask Rise Socrates to help formulate a query. They can also share a code fragment and get an explanation of its purpose and logic.
- Business texts. Rise Socrates can help draft instructions for colleagues, explain procedures to new employees or prepare professional responses to customers.
The assistant also supports multiple languages, including English, German and Afrikaans, so employees can ask questions and receive answers in the language they are most comfortable with, making the system easier to use across multilingual teams.
Rise Socrates analyses a screenshot in Afrikaans.
What’s next for Rise Socrates?
Rise Socrates is currently available in two Rise SA solutions: Rise Business, a warehouse and distribution management system, and Rise School Management, an all-in-one software solution for schools.
Elena Pinchus, 1C Consultant at Rise SA Business Solutions, recently used Rise Socrates to prepare a Rise School Management demo for a client:
“Last week, I needed to prepare a Rise School Management demo for a client, and it seemed challenging as I was barely familiar with the system. With Rise Socrates, I got ready much faster and felt confident answering the client’s questions. I learned Rise Business myself by going through help documentation and watching videos online, so I know how time-consuming that process can be. Rise Socrates makes a real difference.”
The next step is to bring Rise Socrates to AccountingSuite, an accounting solution for SMEs. The company is also considering introducing the assistant into other applications if there is sufficient demand from customers.
Another planned improvement is an activity logging feature that will help the Rise SA team investigate errors users encounter and resolve issues faster.
