September 24, 2026
What Happens When You Ask Steelix for Metal?
You know what you need.
Maybe it's 20 pieces of A36 plate. Maybe it's a list of different sizes and quantities. Maybe you aren't entirely sure how to describe the material, but you know enough to get the conversation started.
Traditionally, that means sending an email, making a call or submitting a form—and waiting for someone on the other end to pick it up.
Steelix gives metal buyers another option.
What is Steelix? It’s an AI-powered assistant designed specifically around the process of buying metal. You can tell Steelix what you're looking for, ask questions and begin building a quote right away.
But what happens after you hit send?
We asked Tony Degidio, Lead Technology Engineer for SteelNow and the developer behind Steelix, to help explain what happens behind the scenes—and, more importantly, why any of it matters to a metal buyer.
Steelix starts working on your request
Steelix isn't simply generating an answer based on what it thinks you might mean.
It has tools that allow it to search the SteelNow product catalog and match your request against actual products. A product must be validated against the catalog before Steelix can use it to build a quote.
That distinction matters.
As Degidio explains, Steelix operates with rules that require it to find the requested product in the SteelNow catalog before using it in a quote.
“It’s an actual product in the catalog because that’s a hard rule. If you don’t find it in the catalog, you can’t make a quote.”
— Tony Degidio, Lead Technology Engineer, SteelNow
Steelix can search the catalog, but it can't simply invent a product and add it to a quote.
Ask a general-purpose AI tool about a metal grade, and it can give you information.
Ask Steelix for metal, and it can help you do something about it.
Steelix can identify products, collect the information needed for a request and help create a quote.
In other words, the goal isn't conversation for conversation's sake.
The goal is to get you closer to the metal you need.
You don't have to wait for the conversation to start
There's nothing wrong with calling or emailing a salesperson. In plenty of situations, that's still exactly what you should do.
The problem is that every request doesn't necessarily require a phone call.
Sometimes you simply want to know: Can you help me with this?
Steelix can respond immediately.
“It’s an instant response. You don’t have to wait 30 minutes for somebody to get back to you. You don’t have to wait on hold.”
— Tony Degidio
And unlike a traditional live-chat experience, your request isn't competing for an agent's attention.
As Degidio puts it, with traditional chat, an agent may have “17 other windows open and you're just one of 17.” With Steelix, the conversation can begin immediately.
You ask.
Steelix gets to work.
That can be especially useful when you're trying to get something off your plate quickly—or you're working outside normal business hours and don't want to wait until tomorrow just to get the process started.
It can tell you when something doesn't add up
Speed isn't very useful if it sends you down the wrong path.
Steelix is designed to work within the SteelNow catalog rather than simply making a product fit your request.
That becomes especially helpful when a request is incomplete, unclear or includes a combination that doesn't match an available product.
For example, Degidio described how Steelix can identify when a requested grade doesn't match a product in the catalog and surface alternatives for a salesperson to review rather than simply pushing the request through.
Sometimes the most useful answer isn't "yes."
It's knowing early that you need to have a different conversation.
Steelix isn't meant to replace the human part of buying metal
This may be the most important thing to understand about Steelix.
SteelNow still has people.
Steelix isn't designed to eliminate the relationship between a metal buyer and a salesperson. It's designed to handle more of the repetitive work surrounding that relationship.
Behind the scenes, for example, Steelix can help the SteelNow team process lengthy RFQs and enter multiple line items instead of requiring someone to manually build them one at a time.
Degidio described one example involving a 50-line RFQ. Rather than manually entering each line, the salesperson could provide the RFQ to Steelix and have the line items populated in roughly 30 seconds for review—work Degidio estimated could otherwise take about an hour.
Why should you care?
Because the less time your salesperson spends entering data and looking things up, the more time that person can spend helping customers with situations that require experience, judgment and follow-through.
That's exactly how Steelix and the SteelNow team are intended to work together.
“The goal is for Jonathan (SteelNow's customer service specialist) to be building relationships with people because that’s something a robot can’t do.”
— Tony Degidio
Steelix can take on more of the routine work so the people behind SteelNow can spend more of their time solving problems and working with customers.
Let AI handle more of the routine. Let people handle the relationship.
So when should you use Steelix?
Think of Steelix as another way into SteelNow.
You might use it when you:
Know what material you need and want to get a request started quickly.
Have several items you need to quote.
Have a product question and don't want to wait for a response.
Are working outside normal business hours.
Want to find out whether SteelNow can help before spending time going back and forth.
And when your situation requires more than that, there's still a person behind SteelNow who can step in.
That's intentional.
The goal isn't to force every metal purchase through AI.
It's to give buyers a faster way to handle the parts of metal purchasing that don't need to be slow.
Buying metal shouldn't start with waiting
There will always be metal purchases that require a conversation.
A difficult-to-find product. An unusual specification. A sourcing challenge. A question where experience matters as much as the information on the screen.
That's where people are invaluable.
But starting a straightforward request?
Checking whether SteelNow can help?
Getting the quoting process moving?
Those things shouldn't necessarily have to wait for someone to become available.
That's where Steelix comes in.