Same premium AI.

When you chat with tools like ChatGPT, your conversations can be used to improve their AI by default. Your words, your business ideas, your personal details become part of the training data for future models. Ask Safely never does this. The AI models are already trained before they reach you. Nothing you type ever goes back into making the AI smarter or shaping what it tells someone else. Your conversations stay yours.

Every message is encrypted with AES-256 — the same standard banks and government agencies use to protect sensitive data. Each message gets its own unique encryption key. Your email, password, and any stored data are encrypted the same way. On top of that, chats auto-delete after 8 hours. That's a permanent, hard delete from the database — not hidden in an archive somewhere.

Yes. When the countdown timer hits zero, the conversation is permanently removed from the database. It's not moved to a trash folder, not archived, and not recoverable. The same goes for instant deletion — when you swipe left to delete a chat or click delete on web, it's gone immediately.

No. Ask Safely does not sell, share, or provide your data to any third party. Your conversations are not used for advertising, profiling, or training. We make money from subscriptions, not your data.

You can ask about anything without worrying about a permanent record. Because chats auto-delete and your data is never stored long-term or used for training, there's no lasting footprint from questions about health symptoms, legal situations, finances, relationships, or anything else. That said, Ask Safely is an AI assistant — not a doctor, lawyer, or financial advisor. Always treat answers as a helpful starting point.

No. The privacy protections are completely separate from the AI's ability to answer your questions. Ask Safely uses the same top-tier Anthropic models available anywhere. The auto-deletion and encryption happen after you get your answer — they don't affect the quality of the response at all. Full AI capability, full privacy. No trade-off.

Ask Safely is completing its SOC 2 Type 2 certification through Vanta, with certification expected by mid-2026. Our entire platform runs on AWS infrastructure, which maintains SOC 2, PCI DSS, and HIPAA certifications — giving us a strong security foundation while we complete our own independent audit.

By default, every chat auto-deletes 8 hours after your last message. You'll see a live countdown timer showing how much time is left. If you want to keep a conversation longer, you can extend it to 14 days (swipe right on mobile, or click the extend button on web). After 14 days, it's permanently deleted. You can also delete any chat instantly at any time.

When you save (extend) a chat, it moves from the 8-hour default to a 14-day window. You'll see its own countdown timer in your chat history so you always know exactly when it will disappear. During those 14 days you can re-read it, continue the conversation, or delete it early. After 14 days, it's permanently gone.

On mobile apps, swipe left on a chat to delete it instantly. Swipe right to extend it to 14 days. As you start swiping, a label shows which action you're about to take so you don't accidentally do the wrong one. On the web app, the same actions are available through buttons.

No. Starting a new chat moves your current conversation to your chat history — it doesn't delete it. Your previous chat keeps its countdown timer and stays accessible until it expires or you delete it.

No — and that's by design. Deletion is permanent and immediate. There's no trash folder, no undo, no recovery. If you have a conversation you might want to come back to, extend it to 14 days before you're done with it.

Paid subscriptions. The Essential tier is free and always will be. The Expert tier is planned at $20/month (or $200/year) and will include advanced AI, voice, document uploads, research tools, and a memory profile you fully control. We chose this model deliberately — when revenue comes from subscriptions instead of data, our incentives line up with yours.

The free Essential tier is genuinely free with no hidden data collection. You get unlimited AI chat, automatic web search, auto-deleting chats, the ability to save and extend conversations, guided prompts, follow-up suggestions, and cross-device sync. It handles about 80% of what most people use AI for. We offer it because trust is earned.

Expert ($20/month or $200/year) will include everything in Essential, plus access to Anthropic's most powerful AI model with extended thinking. You'll also get specialized tools for Research, Writing, and Learning, plus voice conversations, dictation, document upload and analysis, private chat sharing links, and a Memory Profile where you control what the AI remembers about you. Expert launches in spring 2026 with core features — advanced tools and Memory Profile will roll out progressively through the year.

Your chats auto-delete by default, so there's nothing to lose there. If you've built a Memory Profile on Expert, you'll be able to export it anytime. We've designed the product so you're never locked in.

We don't run ads and have no plans to. When AI recommends a product or steers a conversation toward a brand, how would you know? Unlike traditional ads, AI-generated recommendations can be invisible — woven into answers you're trusting as objective. We'd rather make money from subscriptions and keep your conversations completely clean.

No. Guest Mode lets you try Ask Safely right away — no signup, no email, nothing. You get up to 10 messages a day with the same AI, web search, auto-deleting chats, and guided prompts. If you like it and want unlimited messages, you can create a free Essential account. Any conversations you started as a guest carry over.

Whatever's on your mind. Ask Safely shows guided prompt suggestions when you open a new chat — categories like "Help me write," "Help me learn," or "Search a topic," each expanding into specific ideas. After each response, you'll also see follow-up suggestions that help you dig deeper. These prompts are there every session, not just your first time.

Document upload is available on Expert. You can upload Word docs, PDFs, spreadsheets, and images, and the AI can read, analyze, and discuss them with you. Useful for reviewing contracts, analyzing data, summarizing reports, or getting feedback on writing. Uploads are encrypted and subject to the same deletion protections as your conversations.

Yes, on Expert. You get voice-to-voice conversations (talk and hear spoken responses) and dictation (speak your message and it appears as text). Voice data gets the same privacy protections as text.

When the AI uses web search, it includes citations directly in the response. You can see which sources informed which parts of the answer and click through to verify. Below the response, you'll also see which AI model was used and whether search was involved.

For most conversations, it doesn't need to — and that's the point. The majority of what people ask AI are one-off questions that don't require any memory. For continuity, you can extend any chat to 14 days. We're also building an optional Memory Profile for Expert that lets you choose what the AI remembers. You'll control what's saved, what's not, and can change anything at any time.

Yes. On iOS, you can enable Face ID or Touch ID in settings. The app will require biometric authentication to open, adding an extra layer of privacy on top of your account login.

Be specific. Instead of "help me write an email," try "help me write a polite but firm email to my landlord about a broken heater." Mention who the audience is and what tone you want. If the first answer isn't quite right, tell the AI what to change rather than starting over.

For everyday use — writing help, searching, learning, and general questions — you won't notice a quality difference. Ask Safely uses Anthropic's latest Claude models, which consistently rank among the best available. What you will notice is that Ask Safely doesn't collect your data, doesn't build a hidden profile, and doesn't use your conversations for training.

The difference is what happens to your data. ChatGPT can use your conversations for model training by default, and its memory builds a profile you can't fully see, edit, or take with you. Ask Safely auto-deletes chats after 8 hours (permanent deletion, not archiving), never uses your data for training, and when you use the Memory Profile, you own and control everything in it.

You can — Claude is great. Ask Safely adds three things on top. The privacy layer: auto-deletion, encryption, and no data training. The simplicity layer: automatic model selection, auto-triggering web search, and guided prompts. And soon, the memory layer: a portable Memory Profile that you own. Claude gives you the raw AI. Ask Safely handles the complexity and protects your data.

Either way works. Many people switch entirely because Ask Safely covers everything they need. Others keep ChatGPT for some things and use Ask Safely specifically for private conversations — health questions, financial planning, personal topics, or anything they'd rather not have stored permanently.

Because our business depends on it. We make money from subscriptions — if we violated your privacy, we'd lose our entire reason to exist. Beyond that, auto-deletion runs at the database level via TTL indexes (not application code), encryption uses AWS KMS with hardware security modules, and we're pursuing SOC 2 certification for independent third-party verification.