AI in SeeAlso, in plain terms

• Reading your proofs. When you upload a PDF, automated text recognition — including AI-powered processing — reads the page layout and text so your pages become searchable and selectable. It doesn't choose entries or write anything into your index.
• The in-app help. The help panel answers your “how do I…?” questions about the app and about indexing. How we built it is explained below.

That's all. SeeAlso has no feature that suggests or writes index entries.

• It doesn't suggest, write, or decide anything in your index.
• It isn't trained on your book. We don't use your manuscript or your index to train anything, and the outside services that process text for us are not permitted to train their models on it.
• It doesn't share your work with other users, or use one author's book to answer another author's questions.

We didn't train an AI model on anyone's writing. The help bot uses an established AI model, and we give it one thing to work from: our own user manual, written by our team — twelve chapters, about 22,000 words, covering every part of the app.

We're adding chapters on how to index — choosing headings and subheadings, cross-references, names, page ranges — written by Andrew, our lead indexer, in his own words from his years of professional indexing. Like any professional, he knows the field's standard references, but no outside books, articles, or other people's indexes go into the help bot's material.

• It answers only from that manual. If the answer isn't there, it tells you it doesn't know instead of guessing.
• It can't see your book. The help panel has no access to your manuscript or your index; the only way it sees any of your text is if you paste it into a question. If we add help that can look at your book, it will send only the page you're on and the entry you've selected, and we'll update this page before it ships.
• We learn from your questions. Your questions and the answers are kept for 180 days so we can find gaps in the manual and fix them, then cleared automatically. Your thumbs up or thumbs down is kept longer, so we can see what's working over time.
• A person owns it. Andrew checks the manual against every release and does a full review twice a year.

Your files and your index are stored in the United States. AI processing is done by established providers working on our behalf, under agreements that require them to protect your text. These providers operate globally, so your text may be processed outside the United States. They keep a temporary copy for a limited period for safety monitoring (typically 30 to 55 days), then delete it. If you'd like the list of providers, email contact@seealso.io.

Deleting a project removes your index from the app. To have your uploaded proofs and processed files removed too, or to close your account, email contact@seealso.io. The full details are in How we handle your manuscript.

If your press, university, or department reviews software that uses AI, we're glad to answer its questionnaire or walk your team through how SeeAlso works. Email contact@seealso.io.