How we use AI
Most of this isn't AI. Here's the part that is.
Every median, every completion rate, every severity, and the whole regulated report are arithmetic and rules. They give the same answer every time, and they run whether or not any model is installed. A language model writes prose in five places, and it is never allowed to state a number, a time, or a name of its own.
Roughly where the work happens. The narrow band is the only place a language model writes anything.
01 / The distinction
Three different things get called AI.
The useful question is not how modern the technology is. It is how much the software is deciding, and whether you can check the result. That gives three tiers, and they behave differently enough that a policy should treat them differently.
Computed
Arithmetic and rules we wrote. No model of any kind. Run it twice, get the same answer.
- Time on task, medians, completion rates
- Severity and outcome scoring, read from the vocabulary your study defines
- Whether a duration is sound enough to be counted at all
- The regulated human-factors report, end to end
- The checks that tell you what the report is still missing
- Search
Recognized
On-device recognition that turns one medium into another. It reads and transcribes. It does not conclude.
- Spoken words in the recording become timed, searchable text
- Text on the participant's screen becomes a search index, and nothing else
- Runs entirely on the recording machine
- Scores nothing, ranks nothing, decides nothing
Generated
A language model, running locally, writing prose or proposing a draft. Wording varies between runs.
- A plain-language summary of a session
- A stakeholder findings report, every claim cited
- Answers to questions you ask about your own study
- A first-draft study plan for you to edit
- A review of report prose a person wrote
02 / The boundary
What the model is not allowed to do.
These are not instructions asking a model to behave. They are properties of how the software is built, and most of them exist because an earlier version got it wrong and we found out the hard way.
03 / If your policy says no
You can switch it off and keep almost everything.
This is not a workaround. The capabilities are licensed separately, so a configuration without any generative AI is something you can simply buy, and the software is built to be complete without it.
NO GENERATIVE AI
The language model is a separate installation. Leave it out and the software never asks for it, never mentions it, and never checks for it.
- All recording, moderating and observing
- Task timing, outcomes and every metric
- Surveys and their scoring
- The full regulated report and its completeness checks
- Review, search, export
NO MACHINE LEARNING AT ALL
For a policy that covers recognition as well, the searchable layer is licensed separately again and can simply be left off.
- Recording, logging, task timing and outcomes
- Surveys and reporting
- What you give up is the searchable layer: spoken words and on-screen text
Being straight about tier 2: recognizing speech and reading text on screen are machine learning, and a policy that says no AI may well cover them. We would rather say so than describe them as something else. What we will say is that they only ever transcribe, they never draw a conclusion, and nothing they produce leaves your machine.
Bring us your policy
We will map it to the feature list, line by line.
If your organization regulates or restricts AI, send us the policy. We will show you exactly which capabilities it touches, which it does not, and what a compliant configuration looks like. A detailed technical paper, down to the level your security reviewers will want, is available under NDA.