How Bstore is certifying its store managers and back office as AI Officers, on real work, while building a database it owns
In progress. Kickoff 21 August 2026; results to follow.
People in the full AI Officer Certification, from the CEO to dispatch, warehouse and merchandise planning.
How ready the team rated its data for AI before the program. Nine of the 14 already used AI daily.
Missions per seat: 4 generative, 6 agentic, 8 AI engineering, each passed by producing work.
Bstore has spent two quarters mapping how each department works, its leadership is trained and its team uses AI every day, and then it stalls. Edge8 is running two tracks in parallel: certifying the people who run the business as AI Officers, and standing up the database that gives their AI something real to work on.
Bstore has done the hard part most companies skip: two quarters of mapping how each department actually works, role by role. Leadership is trained, the team uses AI every day, and then it stalls, because there is no in-house capability to take the next step and nobody has time to self-teach.
The pre-program survey of 14 leaders tells the story. Nine use AI daily or many times a day. Confidence using AI for real work: 3.1 out of 5. Workflows clearly documented: 2.6. Company data organized and ready for AI: 2.3. The team is fluent with the tools and starved of the inputs. Nearly every time drain in the audits is someone re-checking the same number across several systems by hand, or building one weekly report out of many sources.
“Being able to have live data to connect to rather than constantly uploading to it. API connections to our sources of truth.”
Kim, Buying and Merchandise Planning Manager, on what she wanted from AI
The full AI Officer Certification, for fifteen people.
One live kickoff, then missions and electives at their own pace and on their own work, with leadership watching progress on a dashboard. Four weeks in, the group has completed 10 missions and 9 electives, most of them in weeks three and four. That is the usual shape: slow while people find the first hour, fast once the first mission lands.
- One live kickoff, online. The AI Officer mindset, how to design an AI Program plan, and a prompt used to draft a personal roadmap on the spot. Fourteen leaders on the call: the CEO, the general manager, the financial controller, and the heads of ecommerce, marketing, retail, dispatch, warehouse and stock.
- Mission-based certification, not attendance. Each seat works through 18 missions at their own pace, on their own work. You pass by producing something, not by showing up. Leadership sees every participant's progress on a dashboard, which is how you find your rising stars.
- A database Bstore owns. In parallel, Edge8 is installing the Company OS on accounts in Bstore's name. Step one is one-way, read-only, masked syncs from finance, ecommerce, rostering and the marketing platforms, so the numbers finally live in one place. Our engineers build in Claude Code, and the Claude usage sits on Bstore's own account, not ours.
- A 40-item roadmap, ranked by Bstore. Five groups: data foundation, reports on demand, AI assist, cross-system automation and bigger builds. Bstore sets the priorities itself, and the first two are a weekly marketing report and a labour-cost-versus-revenue roster check. Every item shows who it is for, what happens today, what gets built and an estimate in Human Tokens.
- The certified people ask; the engineers ship. Ongoing build is metered in Human Tokens, one unit of work at a time, with a tracker Bstore can see. No monthly fees, no timesheets.
- Kickoff pulse, 11 responses the same day. "Because of the program, I feel more capable to lead AI": 3.6 out of 5. An honest number for a first session with beginners on the call; the certification is what moves it.
- What they loved: "Step by step help, made it very clear" (Erin, Ecommerce). "Felt far more in tune with this session" (Robynn, Marketing). "Real time access to a person who could answer specific questions" (Maria, Stock Team).
- What they asked us to fix: "Less jargon maybe?" "Perhaps shorter as it's a lot of info." "Visualising the end goal." We are reshaping the sessions on the strength of those three lines.
- The engagement is in progress. Missions completed, syncs live and hours returned to dispatch, returns and stock will be added here as they land.
“How it was explained in simple steps from the start so you can map out the process of getting the most out of AI.”
Sarah, Merchandise Planning
Two quarters of role-by-role audits became the roadmap in a week. A company that has not written down how work happens cannot automate it, and a model cannot guess it.
Training usually reaches the leadership group and stops. Capability cascades when the dispatch manager and the merchandise planner are in the cohort and the missions are on their own work.
Every SaaS app keeps your data in its database. A read-only sync into a database in your name is the single move that turns daily AI use into AI that can see the business.
For the certification, see how the AI Officer programs are earned. For the database and the engineers to build on it, talk to us about the roles you actually need.
