Terms of service

• Service: the AECAI web console, mobile app, report generation, AI features and related support.
• Workspace: your organisation's area in the Service.
• Users: the people you invite to your Workspace.
• Customer Data: everything you or your Users put into the Service (photographs, answers, documents, templates) and the reports and findings the Service produces from it.
• AI Output: anything the Service generates automatically: photo sorting, AI scan findings, computer-vision (CV) detections, draft wording and generated reports.
• Included AI: AI features that run on AECAI's own account with an AI provider, rather than on a key you supply (clause 5).
• Pilot: the free period in clause 4.1.
• DPA: our Data Processing Agreement, which forms part of these terms.

2.1 We will provide the Service with reasonable skill and care.

2.2 We improve the Service over time and may change its features. We will not make a change that materially reduces the core functions you have paid for during your current billing period.

2.3 The Service is in early access. We offer no service level: we do not promise any particular availability, response time or fix time. We may suspend the Service briefly for maintenance and will tell you in advance where we can.

3.1 Accounts are by invitation only. AECAI creates your firm's account and invites your director; your director invites other Users. You are responsible for your Users' use of the Service.

3.2 Sign-in needs a password and a one-time code sent by email. Users must keep both private. Tell us at once if you suspect an account has been compromised.

3.3 We may suspend a User's access, or your whole firm's access, if we reasonably believe it is being misused or is a security risk, telling you why. Suspending a firm's access keeps its data; it does not delete it. We restore access when the reason has gone.

4.1 Free pilot. The Pilot is free for 60 days. It starts on the day AECAI creates your firm's account, not on the day you first sign in. During the Pilot you may issue up to 10 reports in each 30-day period. Included AI is available during the Pilot (clause 5).

4.2 The plan. After the Pilot there is one plan: £100 a month per firm, exclusive of VAT, plus VAT where it applies. Every User is included. The number of issued reports is not limited on the plan. Included AI is available up to the monthly limit in clause 5.

4.3 How you pay. You subscribe, and pay by card, through Stripe Checkout. You manage your payment details and cancel through Stripe's Customer Portal, which you reach from "Manage billing" in the console. The subscription renews each month until you cancel.

4.4 When the Pilot ends without a subscription. Your Workspace becomes read-only: your Users can look at their work and download reports, but cannot add to it, issue reports or use Included AI. Your data is kept (clause 6).

4.5 Cancelling. You may cancel at the end of any billing period. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for. We do not refund part periods unless the law requires it.

4.6 Price changes. We will give you at least 30 days' notice of a price change. It applies from the first billing period after the notice ends. You may cancel before then.

4.7 Failed payment. If a payment fails we will tell you and retry. If it stays unpaid after a grace period, your Workspace becomes read-only as in clause 4.4 until it is paid. During the grace period you can keep working. We will not delete Customer Data because of late payment without first giving you notice and a chance to export it.

5.1 Your own AI key. You may connect your own account with an AI provider (a "key"). If you have, the Service uses your key first. You are responsible for that account, its charges and your agreement with the provider. Some providers you can choose process data outside the UK and EU, and the key picker shows where; five of them are in China. Choosing one is your decision and your responsibility.

5.2 AECAI's included key. If you have no key of your own, the Service uses AECAI's key with Google (Gemini). It is available on the Pilot and on the plan. It is limited to US$50 of AI use by your firm each calendar month, counted at our prices, including use on your own key. The count starts again on the first day of each month. The limit is checked when a job starts, so one large job can run a little over it before the key stops. Once the limit is reached, AI features that use the included key stop until the next month, unless you connect your own key.

5.3 We may change the limit, or the provider behind the included key, on 30 days' notice. The DPA explains how personal data is handled when the included key is used: Google is then AECAI's sub-processor.

6.1 You own the Customer Data. You give us the right to host, copy, process and transmit it only as needed to provide the Service to you, as set out in the DPA.

6.2 You are responsible for having the right to put the Customer Data into the Service, including any notices or permissions needed from the owners of the sites you inspect and from people who appear in your photographs.

6.3 Model training. We use Customer Data to train our own computer-vision models only if you opt in, in your Workspace settings. The setting is off by default and you can change it at any time. If you opt in, we use only de-identified copies (embedded details removed, faces and number plates blurred by automatic detection, which can miss some, and no names), and the trained models belong to us.

6.4 Getting your data out. Your firm's owner or administrator can download your records as JSON and CSV files from Settings at any time. A ZIP of all original photographs is available on request: email [email protected] and we aim to send it within 24 hours.

6.5 Deleting your data. Your owner can ask for deletion with "Close company account" in Settings, or in writing; either way we delete your Workspace's Customer Data from the live Service within 30 days and confirm in writing. Export what you need first: after deletion we cannot restore it. We keep what the law requires us to keep. Copies in any provider backups are not deleted early: they expire when the provider's backup cycle ends. If you do not ask, we keep your data for the retention period set in your Workspace (7 years unless you shorten it).

7.1 AECAI is a tool for qualified professionals. It does not give engineering, surveying or any other professional advice. AI Output is a draft, not a substitute for the judgment of a competent, appropriately qualified person.

7.2 AI Output can be wrong or incomplete. CV detections can miss defects and can mark things that are not defects; AI scan findings and drafted wording can contain errors.

7.3 You are responsible for every report and finding you issue or rely on, including content the Service drafted. The Service has an approval step, but it is optional. We do not require it, and we do not check that any person has reviewed or approved a report before it is issued. You decide who checks what, and you should make sure a competent person checks each report before it is issued.

7.4 Some reports the Service produces carry the line "Produced using AECAI platform technology (AECAI LTD, NI736281)". It tells a reader that software helped prepare the report. Where it appears, please leave it in place. You can edit a Word or PDF file after you download it, and we do not promise that the line appears in every file.

You must not, and must make sure your Users do not:

• use the Service unlawfully, or to infringe anyone's rights, including copyright and privacy;
• upload material you have no right to use, or malware;
• try to get into another customer's data, test the Service's security without our written permission, or overload it;
• copy, resell or reverse-engineer the Service, or use it to build a competing product.

We own the Service, its software, our computer-vision models and our templates. You get a non-exclusive, non-transferable right for your Users to use the Service during your Pilot or subscription. If you send us suggestions, we may use them freely.

Each of us will keep the other's confidential information confidential and use it only for this contract, except where the law requires disclosure. Customer Data is your confidential information.

Where we process personal data for you, we do so as your processor under the DPA, which forms part of these terms. Our Privacy Notice explains how we use personal data as a controller.

12.1 Each of us has the right to enter into this contract.

12.2 Apart from what these terms say expressly, the Service is provided "as is", and all other warranties and conditions, including fitness for a particular purpose and accuracy of AI Output, are excluded to the extent the law allows.

13.1 Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

13.2 Neither of us is liable for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or anticipated savings, or for any indirect or consequential loss.

13.3 We are not liable to you for loss arising from the content of a report you issue, or anyone's reliance on it.

13.4 Subject to 13.1, and apart from your duty to pay fees, each party's total liability in each year from the start of this contract is limited to the greater of £1,200 and the fees you paid in that year.

14.1 This contract starts when AECAI creates your firm's account and continues until it ends under this clause.

14.2 The Pilot ends automatically after 60 days unless you subscribe (clause 4.4 then applies). Either of us may end the Pilot at any time by notice by email.

14.3 After the Pilot you may cancel under clause 4.5.

14.4 Either of us may end the contract at once by notice if the other commits a serious breach that is not put right within 30 days of being asked to, or becomes insolvent.

14.5 When the contract ends: your right to use the Service stops at the end of your paid period; clauses 6.4 and 6.5 apply to your data; clauses 7, 9, 10, 13 and 16 continue.

We may update these terms. We will give you at least 30 days' notice of a change that matters, and you may cancel before it takes effect.

16.1 Neither of us is liable for delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control.

16.2 You may not transfer this contract without our consent. We may transfer it to a buyer of our business, telling you.

16.3 These terms, the DPA, the Privacy Notice and any pilot agreement are the whole agreement between us about the Service.

16.4 Notices go to the email address of your account owner, and to us at [email protected] or our registered office.

16.5 These terms are governed by the law of Northern Ireland, and the courts of Northern Ireland have exclusive jurisdiction.

16.6 Only you and AECAI may enforce these terms; the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 does not apply.