Customers are spending significant sums of money on software and cloud services with Microsoft, and they are finding themselves without the structured discounts and the advisory support they previously relied on from resellers. This change will leave many companies at risk of overpaying or procuring sub-optimal solutions, often without realizing it.
Onyx is an AI agent as a service (AaaS) platform for Licensing Advisory and Commercial Account Management, providing fast, unbiased and transparent licensing advice and pricing. Launched in January 2025, Onyx addresses the growing need for independent licensing advisory services, particularly as enterprise software vendors like Microsoft move to direct contract models. However, Onyx’s original platform faced significant challenges: an unscalable infrastructure and solution architecture, limited support for complex interactions and agentic AI needs, and a non-intuitive design that hindered its ability to scale and serve large-scale businesses effectively. Valere was brought on board to address these issues, resulting in a transformed platform that meets enterprise standards and complex AI processes.
Valere partnered with a prominent accounting firm to develop an advanced tax optimization platform. This platform integrates and then intelligently analyzes a company’s financial data and tax information, aligning it with existing tax-saving strategies, incentives, and programs, to craft a customized tax efficiency plan aimed at financial savings and optimal tax structuring.
Onyx faced several critical challenges that hindered the effectiveness of its platform. The original user interface was unpolished, lacking the professionalism required for enterprise customers, which ultimately reduced trust and adoption rates. Additionally, the chatbot’s UI struggled to support complex interactions, resulting in user frustration and inefficiencies. The platform’s overall experience was inefficient, with a non-intuitive interface that was poorly suited for large-scale businesses with complex licensing needs, making it difficult for users to navigate and complete tasks effectively. These issues were especially pressing in the context of an industry where businesses increasingly require reliable tools to navigate licensing complexities without relying on traditional partner support.
“Customers are spending significant sums of money on software and cloud services with Microsoft, and they are finding themselves without the structured discounts and the advisory support they previously relied on from resellers. This change will leave many companies at risk of overpaying or procuring sub-optimal solutions, often without realizing it.” – Chris Brown
Valere partnered with Onyx to deliver a comprehensive solution that addressed both technical and user experience challenges. The approach focused on enhancing the platform’s UI with a modern, professional redesign to meet enterprise expectations. The updated interface featured clean visuals, streamlined layouts, and improved navigational elements, making it easier for users to access and process licensing information. By simplifying the interface, Valere reduced complexity, enabling faster and more efficient task completion. Additionally, an advanced AI model was developed to handle complex licensing queries with greater accuracy and speed, leveraging expert-curated data.
To ensure scalability, reliability, and performance, Valere rebuilt the platform on AWS, providing Onyx with the infrastructure needed to support growing user bases and data volumes. The solution also included key features to address industry-specific challenges, such as an expert-curated AI engine. This engine delivers instant, accurate answers to complex licensing scenarios, drawing from the expertise of founders Chris Brown and Neil Lomax, who collectively bring over 40 years of experience in the Microsoft licensing channel. Furthermore, Onyx now offers instant benchmarking for transparent pricing and competitive deals, along with unlimited quality assurance through human expert support. This guarantees accuracy and ensures responses are checked within 24 hours to eliminate any anomalies. Additionally, Onyx provides a bank of consulting hours, offering businesses dedicated support for handling particularly complex queries and strategic decision-making.
Developing our AI platform was a journey of trial, error, and refinement. We had to experiment with different models, understand their strengths and limitations, and ensure that the AI wasn’t just providing quick answers and ‘AI hallucinations’, but correct and contextualized answers. AI alone isn’t enough in a space as nuanced as Microsoft licensing, so we designed Onyx to be backed by human experts, offering a safety net that ensures accuracy and trust.
The redesigned and rebuilt Onyx platform has delivered significant improvements, positioning it as a leading solution for enterprise licensing needs:
These results have strengthened Onyx’s value proposition, enabling it to deliver fast, unbiased, and transparent licensing advice, as highlighted in industry coverage (Forbes).
