Terms of use

1. Who we are, and who these terms are for

ASK is a service for businesses. You may use it only for your company's work, and the person who accepts these terms confirms that they may do so for the company. ASK is not offered to consumers.

If your order, these terms and the data processing agreement say different things, the data processing agreement comes first for personal data, then your order, then these terms.

2. The service

ASK lets your people search and ask questions across the tools your company connects, and get answers with their sources. It includes agents, Buddies (personal assistants), schedules, workflows, chat apps and the other features described on this website and in the product.

Everyone sees only what they may already see in the connected tools. ASK takes the access rights from those tools and checks them on every answer, search and action.

We provide the service as it is offered at the time, and we keep improving it. We may change or replace features, but we won't remove something essential to your use without telling you in advance.

Some features connect to products of other companies, such as your e-mail, files, chat apps or an AI provider you bring yourself. Their own terms apply to them, and we aren't responsible for how they work or whether they are available.

3. Your workspace and accounts

• Your people sign in through your company's own sign-in (Microsoft, Google, Okta or another provider your company uses). Your company decides who has an account and what each person may do.
• Your administrators manage the workspace: the tools connected, the AI used, the rules for automatic changes, spending limits and the other settings. You are responsible for what is done with your administrators' accounts.
• Keep sign-in details and access keys safe, and tell us at once if you think someone has misused them.

4. The AI

• Your plan sets the AI. On the plan with your own AI provider, your administrators connect and choose the models, and your agreement with that provider applies to it. On the plan with ASK's AI, we choose and run the models, and we may change them at any time. You use ASK's AI as the service provides it; which model serves you and where it runs are our decisions.
• No training on your data. We never use your data to train AI models, and the AI we provide is only used under terms that don't allow training on it either.
• Answers can be wrong. Answers, summaries, reports and drafts are written by AI. They are marked as AI-generated and show their sources, but they can be wrong, incomplete or out of date. Check important answers against their sources before you rely on them. You decide what you do with them.

5. Changes in other systems

Agents, Buddies and workflows can make changes in your other systems, for example send an e-mail or update a record. They always act with the access of the person they work for. A change needs that person's approval, unless your company allowed it in advance and the person did too; some changes always ask. Messages and e-mails they write are marked as written with AI.

Your company decides which changes may happen without asking, and is responsible for the changes made under those rules and under its people's approvals.

6. Acceptable use

You may not use ASK, or let anyone use it, to:

• break the law, or infringe other people's rights, including their privacy and intellectual property;
• send spam, deceive people, or pretend to be someone else;
• get around access rights, security or the separation between companies, or test them without our written permission;
• attack, overload or disrupt the service, or spread malicious code;
• copy, take apart or resell the service, or use it to build a competing product;
• make decisions about people's employment, performance or behaviour from their chats, or infer their emotions; ASK is not built or allowed for that.

If use breaks these rules, we may suspend the accounts or features involved. Where we can, we tell you first and give you the chance to put it right.

7. Your data

• It stays yours. Your documents, messages, chats and everything the service produces for you belong to you. You give us only the rights we need to run the service for you.
• We process it on your behalf, under the data processing agreement, and only to provide the service. Your company is the controller of the personal data in its workspace.
• Our staff don't see it. To run the service we see settings, usage and costs per company, but not your documents or your people's chats.
• Where it's kept. We store the database and uploaded files in Switzerland, and run the application servers, including the search index, in the European Union. The outside companies we use for it are listed on our sub-processors page. When we add a new one, we e-mail your administrators with the date from which it applies.
• Your part. You make sure you may connect your tools and use their data with ASK, and that your people are informed as your law requires, for example your employee representatives where you have them.

8. Plans, prices and payment

• Two plans. With your own AI provider, you pay a price per user per month; every person who has an account in your workspace during a calendar month counts as one user. With ASK's AI, you pay for what your company uses, and nothing per user. Buddies, schedules and workflows never count as users.
• Prices are those in your order, in your company's currency, and exclude VAT, which is added where it applies. We may change them for the future: a change applies from the first day of a calendar month, and we tell your administrators at least 30 days before it does.
• Invoices and payment. We invoice monthly, and you pay by card through our payment provider. We never see or store your card details.
• Spending limits. Your administrators may set monthly spending limits for the company, for each person and for each Buddy. We never set one for you. When a limit you set is reached, paid use stops until an administrator raises it or the next month starts.
• Late payment. If a payment fails, we tell your administrators and everything keeps working for 30 days. If it is still unpaid then, we may suspend your workspace. Nothing is deleted while it is suspended, and it works again as soon as the payment arrives.

9. Term and ending the agreement

• The agreement runs month to month, with no minimum term. You may end it at any time, and it ends at the end of that calendar month.
• We may end it with 30 days' notice, or straight away if you seriously or repeatedly break these terms.
• When it ends, your administrators can download an export of your workspace. Thirty days later we delete the workspace for good, including its encryption keys. Backups expire within a further 35 days.

10. Our rights

The service, its software, design and the name ASK belong to us or our licensors. These terms give you the right to use the service while the agreement runs, and nothing more. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them freely.

11. Confidentiality

Each of us keeps the other's confidential information secret and uses it only for this agreement. This doesn't apply to information that is public, was already known, or that the law or a court requires to be disclosed.

12. No warranty, and no liability

• As it is. We provide ASK as it is and as it is available. We give no warranty of any kind: not that it is always available, uninterrupted, free of errors or secure against every attack, not that its results are correct or complete, and not that it suits a particular purpose. AI answers can be wrong (section 4).
• No liability. To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for any damage or loss arising from the service or this agreement, on any legal ground. That includes direct and indirect damage, lost profit, lost revenue, lost or damaged data, interruptions, and the consequences of decisions taken or changes made with the service.
• Other companies and events outside our control. We aren't liable for the services of other companies that ASK relies on or connects to, such as server and network providers, e-mail delivery, payment, AI providers and the tools you connect, nor for events outside our reasonable control, such as power or network failures, attacks, natural events or orders of authorities.
• Your own systems stay the original. Your documents and messages remain in the tools you connect; ASK works with copies of them. Keep your own backups of what matters to you in those tools.
• What the law doesn't let us exclude. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that the law doesn't allow to be excluded, in particular for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence, or our duties as your processor under data protection law. Where any liability remains, it is limited, as far as the law allows, to the fees you paid us in the three months before the event that caused it.
• You agree to keep us free of claims by others that arise from your use of ASK in breach of these terms or of the law.

13. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. We tell your administrators at least 30 days before a change takes effect. If you don't agree, you can end the agreement before then.

14. Law and courts

These terms are governed by Swiss law, without the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The courts at our registered office have exclusive jurisdiction.

Questions about these terms? Write to us through our contact form. How we handle personal data is described in our privacy policy.