Questions people actually ask.

Ask Safely is a private AI assistant. Powered by Anthropic's Claude, it gives you top-tier AI with a key difference: your chats auto-delete on a timer you choose, 8 hours by default, and your data is never used for training. What's worth keeping goes into a Knowledgebook you own: a plain-words record of what you know, that only changes when you say so.

Ask Safely runs on Anthropic's Claude models: Haiku and Sonnet for everyday questions, and Claude Opus on Expert. The app picks the right model for each question automatically, a faster one for simple things, a more powerful one for harder or higher-stakes questions. Expert subscribers can also choose a model manually. You don't need to know anything about AI models. Just ask.

Yes. When your question needs current information, Ask Safely automatically searches the web using Brave (a privacy-focused search engine), finds the most relevant results, and gives you a sourced answer. You'll see citations in the response so you can check the original sources yourself. You don't need to turn anything on. Search activates on its own when it's needed.

Ask Safely is available on iPhone and iPad (App Store), Android (Google Play), and web browser at app.asksafely.ai. Your account syncs across all your devices. Knowledgebooks are on the web today, with iPhone and Android coming soon.

Ask Safely is built by SafeLife Inc., founded by Mike Ebener. Mike previously led product at Walmart, scaling their last-mile delivery business. The team includes engineers across iOS, Android, and web, a UX researcher, a fractional CTO, and a UX designer. SafeLife is a Delaware C-Corp. You can reach the team at mike.ebener@asksafely.ai.

When you chat with tools like ChatGPT, your conversations can be used to improve their AI by default. Your words, your business ideas, your personal details become part of the training data for future models. Ask Safely never does this. The AI models are already trained before they reach you. Nothing you type ever goes back into making the AI smarter or shaping what it tells someone else. Your conversations stay yours.

Your chats auto-delete on a timer you choose, 8 hours by default. When a chat clears, it's gone from your history. Everything is encrypted in transit and at rest, and never used for training. Your password is protected with one-way hashing, so even we can't read it.

Yes. When the countdown hits zero, the chat clears itself and it's gone from your history. Nothing moves to a trash folder to read later. Delete a chat yourself, by swiping left on mobile or clicking delete on web, and it clears the same way, right away.

No. Ask Safely does not sell, share, or provide your data to any third party. Your conversations are not used for advertising, profiling, or training. We make money from subscriptions, not your data.

You can ask about anything without worrying about a permanent record. Because chats auto-delete and your data is never stored long-term or used for training, there's no lasting footprint from questions about health symptoms, legal situations, finances, relationships, or anything else. That said, Ask Safely is an AI assistant, not a doctor, lawyer, or financial advisor. Always treat answers as a helpful starting point.

No. The privacy protections are completely separate from the AI's ability to answer your questions. Ask Safely uses the same top-tier Anthropic models available anywhere. The auto-deletion and encryption happen after you get your answer. They don't affect the quality of the response at all. Full AI capability, full privacy. No trade-off.

Ask Safely is undergoing a SOC 2 Type 2 audit, run continuously through an independent compliance platform. We expect the report in 2026 and will share our current status on request.

You choose the timer. Every chat auto-deletes on a window you set: 8 hours by default, or 7- or 30-day windows. You'll see a live countdown showing how long is left. Want a conversation to last longer? Extend it: swipe right on mobile to keep it 14 days, or use the extend buttons on web for 24 hours or 14 days. After that, it clears itself. You can also delete any chat yourself at any time.

Yes. Choose a default auto-delete window of 8 hours, 7 days, or 30 days in settings. 8 hours remains the default. Every chat shows its own countdown so you always know exactly when it clears, and you can still extend or delete any individual chat whenever you want. Change your window anytime.

When you save (extend) a chat, it moves from your default window to a 14-day window. You'll see its own countdown in your chat history, so you always know when it clears. During those 14 days you can re-read it, keep the conversation going, or clear it early. After 14 days, it clears itself.

On mobile apps, swipe left on a chat to delete it instantly. Swipe right to extend it to 14 days. As you start swiping, a label shows which action you're about to take so you don't accidentally do the wrong one. On the web app, the same actions are available through buttons.

No. Starting a new chat moves your current conversation to your chat history. It doesn't delete it. Your previous chat keeps its countdown timer and stays accessible until it expires or you delete it.

No, and that's on purpose. When you delete a chat, it clears from your history right away. There's no trash folder and no undo. If you might want to come back to a conversation, extend it to 14 days before you're done.

Expert is $20 a month, or $100 for your first year and $200 a year after that. The launch offer ends October 31. Everything in Expert is included: Claude Opus and Precise mode, Researcher and Writer, Deep Research, voice, document upload, and chat sharing. The free Essential plan stays free either way.

Paid subscriptions. The Essential tier is free and always will be. The Expert tier is $20 a month, or $100 for your first year, and includes our most advanced AI, Deep Research, voice, and document upload. It also includes Knowledgebooks you own and control. When revenue comes from subscriptions instead of data, our incentives line up with yours.

The free Essential tier is genuinely free with no hidden data collection. You get unlimited AI chat, automatic web search, auto-deleting chats, and cross-device sync. Lookout is free and unlimited: check any scam, phishing text, or robocall before you act. You also get About You, your first Knowledgebook, plus three custom Knowledgebooks, and one free run each of Researcher, Writer, Deep Research, a voice conversation, and an upload. It handles about 80% of what most people use AI for, and it's funded by the paid Expert tier.

Everything in Essential, plus Claude Opus and Precise mode, with an extended-thinking toggle and manual model selection. Expert also adds Researcher and Writer, unlimited Deep Research, voice conversations, dictation, document upload and analysis, and private chat sharing links. It includes Knowledgebooks you own and control. Lookout is free and unlimited for everyone, on every plan.

Your chats auto-delete by default, so there's little to lose there. You can export every Knowledgebook today, free on every plan. We've built the product so you're never locked in.

We don't run ads and have no plans to. When AI recommends a product or steers a conversation toward a brand, how would you know? Unlike traditional ads, AI-generated recommendations can be invisible, woven into answers you're trusting as objective. We'd rather make money from subscriptions and keep your conversations completely clean.

Three focused helpers, each doing a single thing well. Lookout gives you a second look before you act, free and unlimited on every plan. Writer drafts emails and notes in your voice, and Researcher looks things up fast, both included with Expert. Each one sees only the chat you're in.

Deep Research is Expert's tool for questions one search can't settle. Ask something big, like comparing Medicare plans or whether to refinance, and Ask Safely breaks it into steps, runs the searches, reads the sources, and writes a cited report you can download as a PDF. You watch its progress live. It runs on Claude Opus. Included with Expert.

No. Guest Mode lets you try Ask Safely right away. No signup, no email, nothing. You get up to 10 messages a day with the same AI, web search, auto-deleting chats, and guided prompts. If you like it and want unlimited messages, you can create a free Essential account. Any conversations you started as a guest carry over.

Whatever's on your mind. Ask Safely shows guided prompt suggestions when you open a new chat. Categories like "Help me write," "Help me learn," or "Search a topic," each expanding into specific ideas. After each response, you'll also see follow-up suggestions that help you dig deeper. These prompts are there every session, not just your first time.

Yes, with Expert. Upload Word docs, PDFs, spreadsheets, and images (.docx, .pdf, .csv, .xlsx, .png, .jpg, .gif) and the AI reads, analyzes, and discusses them with you. Useful for reviewing a contract, making sense of a spreadsheet, or getting feedback on your writing. Uploads are encrypted and deleted on the same timers as your chats. Included with Expert.

Yes, with Expert. Voice-to-voice lets you talk with Ask Safely and hear spoken replies. Dictate turns your speech into text in the chat box. Voice gets the same privacy protections as text: encrypted, never used for training, deleted on the same timers. Included with Expert.

Yes, with Expert. Generate a private link to any conversation and set when the link expires. The person you share with sees the chat without needing an account. Included with Expert.

Knowledgebooks are a plain-words record of what you choose to keep, that only changes when you say so. Every line shows where it came from, and you can edit or remove any of it. They're live on the web today, on every plan, with iPhone and Android coming soon. The three Experts (Researcher, Writer, and Lookout) are live too.

When the AI uses web search, it includes citations directly in the response. You can see which sources informed which parts of the answer and click through to verify. Below the response, you'll also see which AI model was used and whether search was involved.

For most conversations, it doesn't need to, and that's the point. About 80% of what people ask AI are one-off questions. For the things that matter, you choose what to keep in a Knowledgebook: your dietary needs, your kids' names, your work context. You see everything and edit anything. Later, in late 2026, your Knowledgebooks can travel to other assistants you choose.

Yes. On iOS, you can enable Face ID or Touch ID in settings. The app will require biometric authentication to open, adding an extra layer of privacy on top of your account login.

Be specific. Instead of "help me write an email," try "help me write a polite but firm email to my landlord about a broken heater." Mention who the audience is and what tone you want. If the first answer isn't quite right, tell the AI what to change rather than starting over.

For everyday use (writing help, searching, learning, and general questions) you won't notice a quality difference. Ask Safely uses Anthropic's latest Claude models, including Opus on Expert, which consistently rank among the best available. What you will notice: Ask Safely doesn't collect your data and doesn't build a hidden profile. It also gives you Knowledgebooks you actually own, instead of memory locked inside someone else's database.

The difference is what happens to your data, and who controls what your AI knows. ChatGPT stores your conversations by default and builds a hidden profile you can't fully see, edit, or take with you. Ask Safely clears your chats on a timer you choose, 8 hours by default, and never uses your data for training. What's worth keeping goes into a Knowledgebook you own and can read, edit, and export. Later, in late 2026, it can travel to other assistants you choose.

You can. Claude is great. Ask Safely adds three things on top. The privacy layer: chats that clear on a timer you choose, encryption in transit and at rest, and no data training. The simplicity layer: automatic model selection, auto-triggering web search, and guided prompts. And Knowledgebooks: a record of what you know that you own and control. Claude gives you the raw AI. Ask Safely handles the complexity, protects your data, and puts you in charge of what your AI keeps.

Either way works. Many people switch entirely because Ask Safely covers everything they need. Others keep ChatGPT for some things and use Ask Safely specifically for private conversations: health questions, financial planning, personal topics, or anything they'd rather not have stored permanently.

Because our business depends on it. We make money from subscriptions. If we broke your privacy, we'd lose our only reason to exist. On top of that, chats clear themselves by default, everything is encrypted in transit and at rest, and we're pursuing SOC 2 certification for independent, third-party review.