Questions people ask

These are the questions that come up in almost every first meeting, usually in this order: money first, then data, then artificial intelligence (AI), then whether it'll survive contact with the IT department. The answers are short. Where a fuller answer exists elsewhere, the chapter is named.

Licences and money

What happens if we stop paying?

Nothing that's running stops. When an Enterprise licence ends, the people who can act see a warning in the product, then a 30-day grace period in which everything carries on. After grace, new Enterprise work can't start. Running work continues, and security fixes still arrive. Your sealed records stay readable, and export keeps working alongside the free Community features. An evaluation licence has no grace period, though nothing is deleted when it ends.

Will a licence ever switch off something mid-task?

No. Running work is never stopped by a licence, in any state. Expiry stops new features and new versions, never security fixes.

How much does it cost?

Adverant quotes each edition and add-on for your situation, and this documentation gives no prices. Community is free and open source. If you buy through your cloud provider's store, the charge appears on your cloud bill, and nothing is billed until the licence exists.

Can we start small and add more later?

Yes, and most customers do. A Community installation moves to Enterprise by importing a licence and pressing Fetch and switch on, which brings in the Enterprise parts, checks each one is genuinely from Adverant, and switches them on in about ten minutes. Everything people already have stays where it is. Add-ons and packs arrive the same way.

What if Adverant goes out of business?

The core is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence, so the Community edition stays yours to run. Sealed records can be checked without Adverant, using a free verifier that runs on your own computer. Exports are tested, and the licensed parts' source is held in escrow, which your contract can rely on.

Your data, and who can see it

Can Adverant see our data?

On an installation you run, no. Health reporting to Adverant is off unless you turn it on. The licence names your company, never the people in it. Once a year your administrator sends a usage statement of counters, readable in full before it leaves. A support bundle goes only when you ask for help, after a preview with private details removed. On Adverant's cloud, each organisation has its own private space and keys, and model keys are sealed in your organisation's pool where Adverant staff can't read them.

Where is our data stored?

Where you chose at the first run, and that choice is fixed for the life of the installation. On Adverant's cloud, data is stored and processed in the EU. On Enterprise, the Where data lives page sets a place for each kind of data, and moving it is a tracked job a second person approves. Chapter 1.8, Where Nexus runs, explains the options.

Can our administrators read staff messages?

No. A person's mailbox and notebooks are private even inside the organisation, and so are their direct messages. Administrators see names and counts, never content. When an administrator helps someone by seeing the console as they see it, the view is read-only and ends after 30 minutes. Every page opened is recorded, and the person is told.

Can we get all our data out?

Yes, always. A full organisation export is never behind a paywall, and it keeps working whatever state your licence is in.

How do we remove data when the law requires it?

There's no everyday delete button. Things are withdrawn, and the record says so. Where the law requires removal, for example a person's right to erasure, an administrator uses Erase, which needs a written reason and a second person. A permanent record keeps what was erased and who erased it, with the date, never the content.

What does Nexus tell a data protection officer about processing?

On Enterprise, the data protection pages keep records of processing and consent, breaches, and requests from people about their own data with the deadline for each. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one of the frameworks the compliance pages map controls to. Your counsel confirms the mapping; Nexus provides the evidence.

AI and models

Which AI models can we use?

Whichever your organisation connects. The organisation's key pool takes keys for Anthropic and Google Gemini, OpenRouter and Scaleway. Nexus can also use any model server your organisation runs that speaks the common OpenAI-compatible format. A model on your own hardware is tried before any hosted one. For search, an embedding model runs inside your installation by default.

What if the model provider changes its terms or withdraws a model?

You change it in one place. All AI in Nexus goes through the switchboard, and nothing else in Nexus holds a model key, so no workflow or app names a provider of its own. They say what kind of model they'd like, and the switchboard picks from the providers you've connected. Before you remove a provider, Nexus shows in today's figures what would carry on and what would wait.

Can staff use their own ChatGPT or Claude subscription?

Not inside Nexus. AI in Nexus runs on keys in the organisation's pool, which administrators manage, so every request is counted and recorded under your rules. A personal subscription is a credential that belongs to one person, and Nexus doesn't use personal credentials for shared work. If your team prefers a particular provider, connect an organisation key for it.

What happens if we don't connect any model?

Nexus gives no AI answers, and it tells you so, with the code MODEL_NOT_CONNECTED and a link to the page where an administrator connects one. It never falls back to someone else's key.

Can we run entirely on our own models?

Yes. An installation can use only models on your own hardware, and an offline site has no other choice. The switchboard then sends nothing outside the building.

Does the AI make decisions?

It drafts and suggests. Consequential decisions are made by a named person, and the domain packs lock that rule for the decisions their industry cares about most, such as credit decisions and claims. Where a decision needs more than one view, a decision room puts the case for and against in front of a person who chairs and signs.

How do we keep AI spend under control?

Each run's cost is estimated and set aside before it starts, and budgets cap spend by unit. When a budget is tight, work moves to a cheaper model rather than overspending. From Team up, spend is shown per skill, and Enterprise also shows it per unit.

Can agents act on their own?

Only as far as you allow. Agents start at the levels where they watch or suggest. Every level above asking first needs an administrator's approval, and the top levels need two. Every agent has a human sponsor. A kill switch stops a run, an agent, a team or the whole fleet within five seconds.

Security and compliance

What if we lose the custodian key?

Then the key store can't be unsealed, and the data it protects can't be read. The custodians are the people you name when the installation is set up, and every recovery share is encrypted to each of them, so any one of them can unseal after a restart. Adverant isn't a custodian and holds no copy. Name more than one custodian and keep their keys in different places.

How does Nexus help with the rules we answer to?

The compliance pages map controls to each framework, including the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the Network and Information Security Directive 2 (NIS2). Each control shows the records that answer it, and gaps are written in words. Domain packs add their industry's rules the same way. The mapping is a starting point your counsel confirms; it isn't legal advice.

Can an auditor check a decision without an account?

Yes. A sealed record can be checked with the free verifier, on the auditor's own computer, with nothing uploaded. The answer comes back as plain yes-and-no lines.

What happens if our company sign-in goes down?

An emergency administrator sign-in, made at the first run and kept in your safe, still works. Every use is recorded and announced to all administrators.

What if someone loses a phone?

It's withdrawn in one step. Its passkey is refused at once and its encrypted data is erased the next time it connects. Chapter 1.10, Away from the desk, has the detail.

Running it

Do we need our own platform team?

Not on Adverant's cloud. For your own Kubernetes or an offline site you do, and Part 2 is written for them. An appliance or a cloud-store image needs less: someone who can rack a server or start a machine in your cloud account.

How long does installation take?

On a cluster that passes the preflight check, the install itself takes about twelve minutes. Claiming the installation and creating the first administrator take a few minutes more. Most of the first day goes on connecting company sign-in and a model, and inviting people.

How do upgrades work?

You choose when. An upgrade takes a backup first and rolls out in stages. It keeps a way back until a stated date. If a step fails, the previous version runs again and your data is untouched.

Can we move from Adverant's cloud to our own data centre later?

Yes. Your records and settings move with you, and sealed records keep their seals, so an auditor can check them before and after the move.

The name

What does "alpha" mean?

Alpha is the name of this release of the product: Nexus Alpha, version 1.0.0-alpha.1. The console shows a small Alpha chip beside the product name, and hovering it gives the version. Whatever the release name, the same guarantees hold: every upgrade keeps all your data, export always works, security fixes always arrive, and a licence never stops work that's running.