AI budget, credits and privacy

AI is metered. Every run is held against a budget before it starts, so nothing can overspend.

Credits

AI usage is measured in credits. One credit equals US$0.001 of AI usage. Your plan includes a monthly number of credits (Starter 1,000; Team 5,000; Business 25,000; Enterprise negotiated). Included credits reset at the start of each UTC month.

During a trial the whole trial is capped at 500 credits (US$0.50), whatever the plan includes.

The budget ladder

A run must fit under every level that applies:

1. Organisation monthly ceiling. Set from your plan's included credits. An Owner may raise it only up to what the plan allows.
2. Credit top-up balance. Purchased credits (below). It is used only for what the included credits could not cover.
3. Workspace monthly cap. Each workspace's own allowance. A cap of zero means AI is off for that workspace. Workspace caps plus the organisation questions allowance cannot exceed the ceiling.
4. Project limit. Optional monthly limit per project. A project without one is tracked but not limited.

The organisation's pool is shared: one workspace can use it up and others will be refused.

Set the limits

What	Where	Who
Ceiling, organisation questions allowance, workspace caps, data categories, retention, master switch	Organization → Ari (AI policy)	Owner or Admin (only an Owner may raise the ceiling)
Turn AI use cases on or off for a workspace; project limits	Settings → AI	ai.manage (Owner and Admin)
See usage	Settings → AI, and Organization → AI usage	ai.usage.view / any organisation role

Turn AI on (organisation)

1. Open Organization → Ari.
2. Switch on AI drafting. The first time, read the processing disclosure (model profile, router, provider data use, region) and tick the acknowledgement.
3. Tick the Use cases you want and the Data AI may read.
4. Set Keep AI drafts for, the monthly ceiling, the organisation questions allowance, and each workspace's monthly cap.
5. Save.

If someone else saved first you will be told to reload ("Somebody else saved this policy since you opened it").

Data categories

AI may read only categories your organisation ticks: schedule, risks, changes, gates, workload, setup, people, finance, stakeholders and audit. Finance, stakeholders and audit are off by default. Ari reads a record only as the person asking, so it never reveals more than they could see.

Top-ups: buying more credits

1. Organisation Owner or Admin opens Organization → Billing, Buy AI credits.
2. Choose a pack and pay. Packs seeded today: 5,000 credits for US$10, 20,000 for US$40, 100,000 for US$200. Prices are set by AEVU and shown at purchase.
3. Credits arrive once the payment succeeds.

Top-up credits do not reset monthly. They are valid for 12 months from purchase and used soonest-expiry first; unused credit expires after that. A paid customer can buy credits during the remaining term, but a top-up does not extend a subscription. See Plans, trials & billing.

Usage reporting

AI usage (organisation) and Settings → AI show settled, estimated, reserved and charged totals, runs and failures, broken down by workspace, project, use case and person, with a CSV export. They are aggregates only: no one's prompts or drafts are ever shown. Organisation-level Ari questions are labelled "Organization questions". Costs are first estimated, then corrected to the provider's actual figure; the figure is final within about a day.

When a limit is reached

ai.budgetExhausted names whose limit: organisation, workspace or project. Nothing retries by itself. Included credits return next UTC month; purchased credits do not reset. Raise a cap, set a project limit, or buy a pack.

Privacy and retention

• Drafts and Ari conversations are private to the person who asked.
• AI only reads what the organisation allows and the person can see; the policy is re-checked at admission, before evidence is read and before each request to the model.
• Draft text and evidence are purged after the retention period (7, 14 or 30 days); an organisation that shortens it purges earlier. Ari's question text is cleared too. Counts and costs remain for billing and usage.
• Model requests go through an AI router to a model provider. The exact profile, router, provider data-use statement and region are shown in the processing disclosure you acknowledge before turning AI on.
• There is no browsing, database or write tool available to the model. It only reads through AEVU's own services.