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Sector · Retail & e-commerce

Retail & e-commerce: let AI take the service call. Keep control of what it promises.

Early Customer Program

Last reviewed: 25 October 2026

A retail service line is where an AI agent gets asked for money: a refund after the return window, a discount to save the order, a price match, a delivery date for a birthday, a warranty that sounds better than yours. Under EU consumer law, what an agent tells a consumer on your behalf counts as your commercial practice, before, during and after the sale. Audact checks supported AI responses against your returns policy, discount ceilings, delivery windows and approved warranty wording before they reach the customer, and records each decision. Voice first. Chat and email next, on the same rules.

What the law requires

A person interacting with an AI system must be told so, unless it is obvious from the circumstances.
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 50(1)
What an agent tells a consumer on a trader's behalf is that trader's commercial practice, before, during and after the sale, and it must not mislead.
Directive 2005/29/EC, Art. 2(b), 2(d), 3(1) and 6
Distance sales carry a 14-day right of withdrawal, and the trader refunds within 14 days of being told of it. Unless another time was agreed, goods are delivered without undue delay and within 30 days of the contract.
Directive 2011/83/EU, Art. 9(1), 13(1) and 18(1)
Any announcement of a price reduction must state the prior price: the lowest price the trader applied in at least the 30 days before the reduction.
Directive 98/6/EC, Art. 6a, inserted by Directive (EU) 2019/2161
The seller answers for any lack of conformity that exists at delivery and becomes apparent within two years, and a commercial guarantee binds the guarantor on the terms of its statement and the associated advertising.
Directive (EU) 2019/771, Art. 10(1) and 17(1)
Presenting rights the law already gives the consumer as a distinctive feature of the offer is unfair in all circumstances.
Directive 2005/29/EC, Annex I, point 10
Personal data must be limited to what the purpose needs, and processing needs a lawful basis.
Regulation (EU) 2016/679, Art. 5(1)(c) and Art. 6(1)
For a widespread infringement handled in a coordinated action, the maximum consumer-law fine must be at least 4% of the trader's annual turnover in the Member States concerned.
Directive 2005/29/EC, Art. 13(3), as amended by Directive (EU) 2019/2161
Breaching Article 50 carries a ceiling of €15 million or 3% of worldwide annual turnover; for SMEs and start-ups it is the lower of the two.
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 99(4) and Art. 99(6); Commission guidelines C(2026)5054, point (152)

What Audact does about it

Returns and refunds: a supported reply is checked against your return window, conditions and refund rules before the customer hears it.
In controlled testing
The check covers supported replies and runs within an evaluation window. If it does not answer in time, the original reply is released unchanged and a FAIL_OPEN event records the miss.
In controlled testing
Prices, discounts and price matches: a quoted price against your approved list, a discount against the ceiling you set.
In controlled testing
Delivery dates and warranty statements: checked against the windows and the wording you approved.
In controlled testing
A hand-over to a person when a request falls outside the rules, with the reason recorded.
In controlled testing
The Article 50 disclosure, spoken at the start of the call.
In controlled testing
A tamper-evident receipt per governed interaction.
Working today
AI chat replies under the same rules.
In controlled testing
AI-written order and service emails under the same rules, before they are sent.
In controlled testing

The calls that cost money

Six requests a retail service line hears every week.

The model drafts what pleases the customer. Your rule decides what a supported reply may say, and the gap between the two is the cost of an answer nobody approved.

  • The customer asks
    “I ordered it six weeks ago and changed my mind. Can I still send it back?”
    The model drafts
    “Of course, send it back and we'll refund you in full.”
    Your rule
    Change-of-mind returns: 30 days from delivery. After that, no refund promise; offer a review by the returns team.
    The customer hears
    “Our return window is 30 days, so I can't promise a refund today. I'll pass it to our returns team.”
  • The customer asks
    “It stopped working after four months.”
    The model drafts
    “Sorry, that's outside our 30-day return window.”
    Your rule
    A fault is never answered with the return window; it goes to the warranty process.
    The customer hears
    “A fault is handled under the legal guarantee, not the return window. Let me take the details for our service team.”
  • The customer asks
    “It's cheaper elsewhere. Can you match that price?”
    The model drafts
    “Sure, I'll match it and take another 10% off.”
    Your rule
    The assistant may offer up to 5%. Price matches only under the published price-match terms.
    The customer hears
    “I can offer you 5% today. A price match is checked by our team against our terms.”
  • The customer asks
    “Will it arrive by Saturday? It's a birthday present.”
    The model drafts
    “Yes, guaranteed by Friday.”
    Your rule
    Delivery: quote the published window; never guarantee a date the carrier has not confirmed.
    The customer hears
    “Standard delivery takes two to four working days, so I can't promise Saturday.”
  • The customer asks
    “Does it come with a warranty?”
    The model drafts
    “Yes, our exclusive two-year warranty covers everything.”
    Your rule
    State the legal guarantee as the law's. Extra cover only in the approved wording.
    The customer hears
    “For faults, the legal guarantee applies. Our extra cover is set out in the guarantee terms.”
  • The customer asks
    “Can you change the delivery address on my order?”
    The model drafts
    “Done, I've changed it for you.”
    Your rule
    Order changes: take the request and hand it to the order team; never confirm a change the system has not made.
    The customer hears
    “I've passed the new address to our order team. The change counts once you have their confirmation.”

Illustrative scenario with fictional rules; no customer deployment implied. A check applies only where the governed workflow routes the response through it.

Your rules

What Audact checks before a reply reaches the customer.

You set the rules, and Audact checks the reply against them in the response path, not only in a prompt. A prompt is a request, and a request can be argued with.

The refund, the discount and the order change stay where they are today: in your systems, with your team. Audact checks what the agent says; it does not move money.

  • Returns and refunds: the window, the condition of the goods, who pays for the return, and when the money comes back.
  • Prices and discounts: quoted prices against your approved list, discounts under the ceiling you set, price matches only on your published terms.
  • Reductions: a “was” price only as the prior price the law asks for, the lowest in the 30 days before the reduction.
  • Delivery: the windows you publish, without a guaranteed date the carrier has not confirmed.
  • Warranty: the legal guarantee stated as the law's, and your extra cover only in your approved wording.
  • Order changes and cancellations: taken as requests and handed to the team that makes them.
  • Words your rules exclude, and topics your rules send to a person.

Where it pays off first

Four places a retail agent earns its keep.

  • Inbound service lines: returns, sizes, delivery windows, warranty questions, opening hours. The questions that fill the queue, answered within your rules.
  • After hours and peak weeks: the sale weekend, the January returns wave, a delivery backlog. The agent keeps answering, and whatever falls outside the rules waits for your team as a call-back note.
  • Call-backs the customer asked for: about a return, a delivery or a repair, under the same rules as an inbound call.
  • Order changes: a new address, another delivery slot, a cancellation, taken as a request and handed to the team that makes the change.

What goes to a person

Where the agent stops and your team takes over.

A hand-over is a rule like any other: the reply is held back, the reason is recorded, and the customer hears the next step you approved.

  • A faulty or unsafe product, and anything that sounds like injury or damage.
  • A complaint, a dispute or a chargeback in progress.
  • A refund, discount or exception outside every rule you set.
  • A customer who asks for a person, or one who is clearly upset.
  • Anything about someone else's order or account.
  • Legal threats, and questions about consumer rights beyond your approved answers.

The record

A record of each decision, not a transcript.

Every check that answers in time leaves a receipt: whether the reply was allowed, modified or blocked, with the input and the output stored as hashes rather than words.

The receipt is tamper-evident. It shows that the record is intact: a later change or reordering is detectable by recomputation against a retained commitment. It carries an HMAC-SHA256 code under a symmetric key held by Audact, so whoever can check it can also produce it: an authentication code, not a signature. It does not establish who issued it, and whether the underlying event is true. Three of its values can be recomputed without a key: the input hash, the output hash and the hash of the preceding evidence event.

Whether a refund was paid or an address changed is established by the system that did it, not by the receipt. You can recompute a sample receipt in your own browser.

The law, in short

Article 50 already applies. Consumer law was there before the AI.

Article 50 of the AI Act has applied since 2 August 2026: a customer must be told they are speaking to an AI system, unless that is obvious. It is a transparency duty, not a ban.

The heavier rules for a retail line are older: consumer law on withdrawal, refunds, delivery, price reductions and guarantees. They apply to what an agent says on your behalf, as they apply to your website and your staff. Most come from directives, so the operative text is the national law, and details such as guarantee periods can differ per country. General information, not legal advice.

Questions

Can the agent give a refund or a discount?
It can say what your rules allow. A supported reply with a discount above your ceiling or a refund outside your policy is held back before it is spoken, and the customer hears the fallback you approved. The refund or discount itself is applied where it is today, in your systems, by your team: Audact checks what the agent says and does not move money.
Is a promise made by the agent binding on us?
Whether a statement binds you depends on national contract law and the facts of the call. What is settled is that consumer law treats what an agent tells a consumer on your behalf as your commercial practice. That is why the check sits before the reply, not in a review afterwards.
What happens when a customer keeps pushing?
The rule holds for every supported reply: one outside it is held back, the customer hears the next step you approved, such as a call-back from your team, and the reason goes on the receipt. A transfer to a person during the call is in controlled testing.
Does the customer have to be told it is an AI?
Yes. Article 50 of the AI Act has applied since 2 August 2026: the customer is told at the start of the call that they are speaking to an AI system. It is a transparency duty, not a ban; once the customer has been told, the call carries on.
We run service lines for several retailers. Can each have its own rules?
Yes. Return windows, discount ceilings and approved wording are configured per end-client workflow. Netherlands and Flanders (BE): intake open. Germany and Austria: intake is a conversation and not a start date. How agencies and answering services work with Audact is set out on the agency page.

One discount rule, step by step

The brand-governance page takes a single discount rule through a call: what the model drafted under pressure, what the caller heard instead, and the line it left on the receipt.

See the discount rule at work

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