Access and availability
Q: I want to use AI Assistant but it's disabled. What do I do?
A: AI Assist can only be enabled or disabled by a Chair, Board Secretary, or Administrator from the main board's Settings page. AI Assist is not currently available in committee accounts.
Q. Which plans is AI Assistant included in?
AI Assistant is included in all Premium and Ultimate plans.
Q: How do I tell which BoardPro plan I'm on / whether I have AI?
A: Everyone can see the Ask AI button. If you're on Premium or Ultimate, you can start using it right away – as long as your workspace admin has turned the feature on. If you're on Essentials, clicking the button will show a prompt to upgrade.
Q: Does enabling AI turn it on for everyone, or does each director activate it? Can an admin trial it first?
A: When a Chair, Board Secretary, or Administrator enables AI Assist, it becomes available to everyone on the board account. Individual users do not need to activate it themselves. Using AI Assist is optional. AI-generated features are clearly labelled, and users can simply ignore the Ask AI button if they prefer not to use it.
Q: My admin has turned it on but I don't want to personally use it. Do I have to?
A: No. All AI features in BoardPro are opt-in by choice. You'll see anything AI-powered clearly marked, and you can simply ignore the Ask AI button if you'd prefer not to use it.
Q: I'm on multiple boards – does AI Assistant work across all of them at once?
A: No, AI Assistant works within the context of one board at a time. Navigate into the relevant board first, and its answers will draw from that board's materials and history.
Q: Can AI Assistant be used in committees / search across multiple boards & committees?
A: AI Assist works within a single main board account and is not available in committee accounts. It does not search across multiple boards or committees. If you belong to more than one board, open the relevant board first—AI Assist will only use documents and information from that board.
Q: Can advisors, executives or observers (non-directors) use AI Assistant?
A: AI Assistant is available to all roles within BoardPro. As with everything in BoardPro, it respects your existing permissions, so anyone using it sees only the documents they already have access to.
Q: Is the there a record of who has enabled/disabled AI Assist?
A: Yes, you can see who has enabled/disabled AI Assist from the Changes Log tab on your People page.
Accuracy and trust
Q: Can I trust the answers?
A: Trust them most when AI Assistant is citing your own documents – that's what it's purpose-built for, and every answer includes a source you can verify. For general-knowledge questions (a public holiday, a regulatory date), treat the answer the way you'd treat advice from a well-read colleague: useful, but worth checking before acting on it.
Q: I asked the same question twice and got slightly different answers. Why?
A: Large language models generate answers rather than retrieving them from a fixed database, so wording can vary between runs. For questions grounded in your board materials this variation is small and the cited source is what matters. For general questions, variation can be larger – another reason to verify anything material.
Q: The summary seems to repeat itself. Is something broken?
A: Usually not – it means the same information appears in multiple places in the source document, and AI Assistant has surfaced each instance.
Q: How reliable is structured output (e.g. 'my actions'), and does it read my comments or just the document?
A: For anything pulled from your board documents – such as the actions assigned to you – AI Assistant cites the source so you can open it and confirm the result yourself. That verifiable citation is what to rely on, not the phrasing. Because it generates rather than retrieves answers, wording can vary slightly between runs, so for anything material, check it against the cited source before you act on it. It's there to help you walk in prepared, not to make the call for you.
Privacy and data
Q: Can other people see my chats?
A: No. Chats are private to you. Other users, including administrators, cannot see your conversations.
Q: What does AI Assistant search – does it use the internet or wider company systems?
A: AI Assistant searches the documents and meeting history inside the board account you're working in, and it can also draw on the general knowledge built into its underlying AI model. It doesn't browse the live internet, and it can't reach wider company systems such as SharePoint or Google Drive. When it answers from your board materials it cites the source so you can open and check it; treat general-knowledge answers the way you'd treat advice from a well-read colleague – useful, but worth verifying.
Q: Is my board's content being used to train AI models?
A: No third-party AI provider is permitted to use your prompts, documents, or board content to train their models. Full details on how data is handled, including how BoardPro uses anonymised usage information to improve the product, are in our AI Policy.
Q: Can AI Assistant see documents I don't have access to?
A: No. It mirrors your existing BoardPro permissions exactly — if you can't open a document directly, AI Assistant can't reference it either.
Q: Are my Board Pack annotations searchable by AI Assist?
A: Your Board Pack annotations remain private to you and are not searchable by AI Assist
Practical limits
Q: What can I actually do with it? (example prompts beyond search, gap analysis, multi-doc review)
A: Beyond quick search, AI Assistant helps you prepare for and follow up on meetings using your own board materials. Common uses: finding what was discussed or decided on a topic across past meetings, pulling out the actions assigned to you, reviewing a draft paper for gaps before it goes into a board pack, and checking whether a proposal lines up with existing policy or strategy documents.
Example prompts:
'What did we decide about [topic] over the last year?'
'List the actions assigned to me'
'Review this paper and flag anything missing for a board audience'. Every answer drawn from your documents includes a source you can open.'
Q: Can I share a useful chat with another board member?
A: Not currently. Chats are individual to each user. If you want to share a finding, copy the relevant text into an email, agenda item, or document.
Q: Can I export my chat history?
A: Not at this stage. You can view past chats in the history panel for 30 days, but if you want to keep something, copy it out before the thread expires.
Q: How many conversations can I have?
A: You can have up to 30 active threads, and each thread expires after 30 days. If you want to keep a record of something useful, copy it out before the thread expires.
Q: Can I unlock chats?
A: Once a chat is locked it cannot be unlocked.
Q: How long does it take to 'warm up'?
Once you've enabled AI Assistant, it performs a first-time indexing of all your board materials. The time it takes to perform this function depends on the number of documents within your organisation. Typically, it takes around 10 minutes.
Q: Can I download or export a single answer (e.g. to Word)?
A: You can copy an answer's text to paste into a document or email. An improvement coming shortly to copy over with formatting
Q: How long is my conversation history stored?
A: Your data is retained in two different places depending on its purpose:
Azure OpenAI: Messages are retained for 30 days. You can find more details regarding this policy on the providers page.
Our Database: Your conversation history is stored securely in our system until you choose to delete it.
Q: Is AI Assistant available in the BoardPro mobile apps (iPad / iPhone)?
A: At the moment, AI Assistant is available in the web app; support for mobile is on the roadmap.
Q: When is AI Minutes coming, how will it be priced, and can it be toggled separately?
A: AI Minutes – which turns meeting recordings or transcripts into draft minutes – is the next AI feature we're building, and it's separate from AI Assistant. It'll be announced shortly.
Q: Do you have any material demonstrating how AI Assistant works for directors and admins?
A: You can watch our Administrator video here and our Director video here. In addition, the full 35 minute launch webinar for AI assist is available here.