Neobrain × PwC: SkillBot, the HR AI agent inside Microsoft Teams.

Neobrain × PwC. SkillBot, an Agentic AI agent shipped inside Microsoft Teams at PwC USA for 35,000+ employees. Abbeal engagement as a Neobrain subcontractor (French HR SaaS, leading European Strategic Workforce Planning and AI Talent Marketplace), since September 2024.

Context

Neobrain is a French SaaS founded in 2018 by Paul Courtaud, which raised 20M EUR Series A in 2022 (a global record for a Talent Marketplace solution). Its engine uses ML, NLP and LLM to map skills, recommend learning paths and activate internal mobility at scale. Clients: Natixis, BPCE, Bosch, Edenred, La Poste, Deloitte, PwC.

PwC chose Neobrain to build its internal Talent Marketplace (My Marketplace), launched late 2023 and used by 35,000+ PwC USA employees. As a direct extension of that initiative, Abbeal was engaged as a subcontractor to design and ship the conversational layer: SkillBot.

The challenge

Give every PwC employee a single conversational entry point inside Microsoft Teams to manage their career growth: suggest training, ease manager feedback, surface internal mobility opportunities, feed quality signals to the Talent Marketplace. With the reliability, security and cost control a Big Four firm requires.

The Abbeal engagement

• AI and data staff augmentation on SkillBot development
• Senior DevOps reinforcement to secure handover and industrialization of the Neobrain platform
• Sourcing and express hiring of LangChain expertise to absorb roadmap acceleration

Functional scope

• Design and development of the Agentic AI conversational agent (SkillBot)
• Native Microsoft Teams integration (provisioning, authentication, user experience)
• LLM pipeline, prompt engineering, evaluation and guardrails (LangChain)
• Cloud industrialization and observability on the Neobrain platform side
• Security and compliance documentation requested by PwC teams

The tech stack

• Backend & API: Python 3.11, FastAPI, MongoDB
• AI & Agentic: LangChain, LLM (GPT), prompt engineering, evaluation
• Integration: Microsoft Teams (Bot Framework), Microsoft Graph, Node.js
• Cloud & Run: Azure, OVH Cloud, Google Cloud (data & AI)
• DevOps & SRE: Argo CD, Kubernetes, Docker, GitOps
• Method: product mode, short sprints, product workshops (Boston sessions with PwC)

The Abbeal team

A multi-disciplinary team driven directly by Abbeal leadership, blending product, AI and cloud expertise:

• Pauline, lead consultant: SkillBot technical design and product coordination with Neobrain
• Antoine and Martial: Teams app development and FastAPI back-end
• Sara, senior DevOps: Argo CD / Kubernetes / Azure industrialization, SRE handover of the Neobrain platform
• Targeted LangChain reinforcements: sourced and embedded within weeks to absorb the load peak before PwC go-live
• Sponsorship and commercial coordination: Sebastien Lonjon, Abbeal CEO

Project trajectory

1. Sept. 2024: first SkillBot architecture call with Neobrain. POC scoping, first PwC security questions
2. Oct. 2024: Abbeal x Neobrain master agreement signed
3. Nov.-Dec. 2024: SkillBot V2.3 POC delivered for PwC, fixed-price mode
4. Q1 2025: production-readiness of the Teams app. Dedicated Abbeal team allocated
5. May 2025: scope extension, express hiring of a LangChain dev (3 months) to accelerate the roadmap
6. June-July 2025: intensive workshops with PwC including on-site sessions in Boston. Fast product iterations
7. Aug. 2025: SkillBot technical go-live at PwC
8. Sept. 2025: functional go-live and switch to run mode
9. Since late 2025: evolutionary maintenance, new modules, DevOps reinforcement on the Neobrain platform

Outcomes

• SkillBot in production at PwC, integrated into Microsoft Teams, on the Talent Marketplace path used by 35,000+ PwC USA employees
• Secured cloud industrialization, with an Argo CD / Kubernetes DevOps foundation ready to scale to other Neobrain clients
• Time-to-value held: from POC in November 2024 to PwC go-live in September 2025, with no scope or critical schedule slip
• Abbeal's ability to staff a qualified LangChain dev within weeks, in a tight market, validated by Neobrain
• A product designed to be reused: SkillBot becomes a sellable asset of the Neobrain suite beyond PwC

Why Abbeal on this project

Three key reasons: an operational Agentic AI practice (LangChain, LLM in production, evaluation), senior DevOps expertise to secure the run of a SaaS that cannot fall, and the ability to source niche profiles within weeks in parallel, in France and remote. All in partner mode, with direct CEO sponsorship and an outcome-driven delivery logic rather than time-and-materials.