Using the service

Terms of Service

Effective: August 11, 2026

1. Eligibility and agreement

You must be at least 13 years old and located in the United States to create or use an Ask Grounds account. If you are under 18, review these Terms with a parent or legal guardian. These Terms do not limit any rights that applicable law gives you because of your age.

By creating an account or accepting an invitation, you confirm that you are at least 13 and agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not create or use an account.

2. What Ask Grounds provides

Ask Grounds provides AI-assisted educational and planning features, including chat, research, Calendar, public-source retrieval, and carefully controlled connections to user-authorized university systems. Features may vary by account role, availability, and release stage.

Ask Grounds is not an emergency service and does not provide legal, medical, financial, or other licensed professional advice. Do not rely on it for emergencies or as your only source for a consequential decision.

3. Accounts and security

Provide accurate account information, keep your Ask Grounds password confidential, and promptly report suspected unauthorized access. Do not use your NetBadge, SIS, or other institutional password as your Ask Grounds password. You are responsible for activity through your account to the extent permitted by law.

We may require email verification, human-verification checks, password reauthentication, or session confirmation. Account roles and feature permissions are enforced by the service.

4. AI output and source accuracy

AI can make mistakes, misunderstand requests, omit context, or rely on incomplete or outdated source data. Citations and tool activity can help you evaluate an answer, but they do not guarantee accuracy. You must verify consequential academic, scheduling, financial, deadline, eligibility, and account information in the authoritative source before acting.

Third-party and university services control their own content, availability, and records. If Ask Grounds and an official source differ, use the official source and report the discrepancy.

5. Account-changing actions and approval

Ask Grounds ordinarily requires a per-action approval before an account-changing Calendar or university-system action. Read each confirmation carefully. An interruption can leave the outcome of an external action uncertain; do not retry automatically. Check the authoritative system first.

Bypass mode: Bypass is disabled by default and is available only to authorized development or administrator accounts. An eligible user must deliberately enable it after confirming a current password through a session-bound, single-use grant that expires after five minutes. That five-minute grant authorizes enabling Bypass; it does not automatically turn Bypass off. Once enabled, the saved setting remains selected until it is changed or reset. It is effective only while the account remains eligible and the current session is authorized; loss of eligibility makes it ineffective but does not necessarily erase the saved setting.

While Bypass is selected and the account and session remain authorized, it is advance authorization for eligible account-changing actions, and no per-action confirmation screen is shown. Each action is still bound to the current authorized session and exact requested action, expires after five minutes if not used, and remains subject to role restrictions, disabled tools, emergency stops, stale or replayed-action checks, and outcome verification. Bypass does not waive any right that cannot legally be waived.

6. Acceptable use

You may use Ask Grounds only for lawful purposes and in a way that respects other people, university systems, and service safeguards. You may not:

• access another person's account or data without authorization;
• submit unlawful, infringing, deceptive, malicious, or privacy-invasive content;
• circumvent account roles, approvals, rate limits, security controls, or connected-service restrictions;
• interfere with the service, distribute malware, probe for vulnerabilities without written authorization, or overload connected sources; or
• use the service or its output to make unlawful discriminatory decisions or to cause harm.

University and third-party systems may have their own terms and policies. You are responsible for complying with them when you choose to connect or use those systems.

7. Your content

You keep ownership of content you submit. You give Ask Grounds a limited, non-exclusive license to host, reproduce, transmit, format, and process that content only as reasonably needed to provide, secure, maintain, and improve the service, comply with law, and enforce these Terms. This license ends when the content is deleted, subject to the retention and backup limits in the Privacy Policy.

Do not submit content you do not have the right to use. You are not required to provide feedback, but if you do, Ask Grounds may use it without payment or obligation to you.

8. Ask Grounds materials

The service, branding, software, and original materials are protected by intellectual-property laws. Subject to these Terms, Ask Grounds gives you a limited, personal, revocable, non-transferable right to use the service for its intended educational and planning purposes. These Terms do not transfer ownership of Ask Grounds materials or third-party content.

9. Service changes, suspension, and termination

We may change, limit, suspend, or discontinue a feature to maintain the service, respond to security or legal concerns, or adjust the product. We may suspend or terminate an account for a material or repeated breach, unlawful use, a credible security risk, or when required by law. When practical and safe, we will provide an opportunity to address the issue.

You may stop using Ask Grounds at any time and may request account deletion in account settings. A deletion request has a seven-day cancellation period, as described in the Privacy Policy.

10. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Ask Grounds is provided “as is” and “as available.” We do not promise that the service or any AI output, source, schedule, or connected-system result will always be accurate, complete, current, uninterrupted, secure, or suitable for a particular purpose. We disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement where the law permits.

Nothing in these Terms excludes a warranty or responsibility that applicable law does not allow us to exclude.

11. Limits on liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Ask Grounds will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost data, opportunities, enrollment, grades, or profits, arising from the service. Ask Grounds' total liability arising from the service will not exceed the greater of $100 or the amount you paid Ask Grounds for the service during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

These limits do not apply to gross negligence, willful misconduct, or any liability that applicable law does not permit us to limit. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

12. Narrow indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you will be responsible for a third-party claim and reasonable resulting costs to the extent caused by your intentional unlawful use of Ask Grounds, content you knowingly submit without the required rights, or your deliberate circumvention of service safeguards. This section does not require you to cover a claim caused by Ask Grounds or surrender a defense available under law.

13. Governing law and courts

Virginia law governs these Terms, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where applicable consumer law requires otherwise. A dispute must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in Virginia, unless applicable law gives you a right to bring it elsewhere.

These Terms do not require arbitration and do not waive participation in a class action.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the service or law changes. The posted effective date shows when the current version applies. We will request fresh acceptance or provide direct notice only when applicable law, the nature of a material contractual change, or an earlier consent term requires it. Where lawful, continued use after updated Terms are posted means you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the service and request account deletion.

15. General terms

If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, it will be limited or removed only to the minimum extent necessary, and the rest will remain in effect. A delay in enforcing a term is not a waiver. You may not transfer these Terms without our consent; Ask Grounds may transfer them as part of a merger, reorganization, financing, or sale of the service, subject to applicable law. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement about your use of the service unless another written agreement applies.

16. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to contact@askgrounds.com.