Effective date: [PLACEHOLDER]
1. What the AI Teacher is
The AI Teacher is an automated tutor built by Trellis. It is not a person. Every session shows a clear label that your child is talking to AI. It uses Trellis's own curriculum and a third-party AI model to produce replies.
2. Who it talks to
2.1 The AI Teacher is set up and controlled by the Parent. Only a Parent can create an AI course, start a session, see transcripts and reports, and change settings. 2.2 During a session your child talks to the AI Teacher directly, by text and (where enabled) by voice. While a session is open the device is placed in "child mode": the rest of the family account (payments, settings, deletion, other children's sessions) is locked until a Parent re-enters their password. Child mode ends after 12 hours or when the Parent signs out. 2.3 Reports, progress summaries, safety alerts and all account messages go to the Parent only. The AI Teacher never emails, texts or messages a child. 2.4 A Parent should be nearby during sessions for children under 13 [RECOMMENDED - confirm].
3. What it sees and what it doesn't
3.1 We send the AI model only what it needs to teach: your child's first name, year group, subject and the session messages (and voice audio where voice is used). We do not send surnames, contact details, school, location or payment data. 3.2 Children are told not to share personal details and the AI Teacher is instructed not to ask for them. 3.3 Typed AI requests are routed through Vercel AI Gateway (Vercel Inc., USA), which acts as our processor and passes each request to the underlying model provider (currently Anthropic, and others such as OpenAI where we switch models). We use the Gateway's and providers' no-training settings so your child's data is never used to train AI models, and zero-data-retention settings where the provider offers them. Where zero retention isn't available, a provider may keep data briefly only for abuse monitoring, for up to [PLACEHOLDER: provider retention, e.g. 30 days]. The typed session's push-to-talk mic sends a short clip to OpenAI (Whisper, speech-to-text) only after the parent has given the same spoken-session opt-in. 3.4 Spoken sessions — [DRAFT — pending Allen and Themis approval]. The spoken AI Teacher is off until a parent opts in in Settings (the box is unticked). There are seven processors, all in the United States: Deepgram (speech-to-text), Anthropic (the tutor), Cartesia (text-to-speech), Daily (the live audio room), Pipecat Cloud (Daily, Inc.) (runs the voice bot), Vercel AI Gateway with its safety model openai/gpt-oss-safeguard-20b (live moderation of the child's turn and of the tutor's reply before it is spoken), and OpenAI (Whisper, speech-to-text for the typed session's push-to-talk, only after the same parent voice opt-in). Data is processed in the United States. Trellis does not store voice audio. Our providers process it live and keep it only as set out in their terms. Voice conversations are not kept as full transcripts — Trellis keeps a short session summary for 12 months and any safeguarding excerpt for the safeguarding retention period. This draft does not switch the pilot on.
4. Safety
4.1 Every message, picture and reply is checked by an automatic safety filter before it is shown. Spoken replies are checked before text-to-speech; a blocked reply is replaced with a safe line and logged; signs of risk are flagged to our safeguarding lead. Topics outside learning are refused. 4.2 If a message suggests a child may be at risk of harm (for example self-harm), the session pauses, the child is shown help resources, and the Parent and Trellis's Designated Safeguarding Lead are alerted at once; the lead reviews within 24 hours [RECOMMENDED - confirm]. 4.3 Filters are not perfect. Please report anything worrying to [PLACEHOLDER: safeguarding email/phone].
5. Accuracy and limits
The AI Teacher can be wrong. It is educational support, not a guarantee of exam results, and not medical, psychological or legal advice. It makes no decisions with legal or similarly significant effects on your child; mastery scores are learning aids, not assessments for admissions or grading.
6. Transcripts and retention
Typed transcripts are kept so Parents can review them. They are kept for 12 months [RECOMMENDED - confirm] and then deleted. Spoken sessions — [DRAFT — pending Allen and Themis approval]: Trellis does not store voice audio. Our providers process it live and keep it only as set out in their terms. Voice conversations are not kept as full transcripts (short summary for 12 months and any safeguarding excerpt only). Typed transcripts are included in your data download. A Parent can delete a typed session's transcript at any time.
7. Trial, plans and fair use
7-day trial from first use, soft-capped at about 2 sessions a day and 12 sessions in total; then a paid plan is needed (price shown before purchase). See Terms section 4.
8. Your choices
You can turn off voice, stop a session, delete transcripts, or remove the AI Teacher from your child's account at any time.
These AI Teacher Terms form part of the Trellis Terms of Service.