Frequently Asked Questions
Here are answers to questions you may have. If your question is not covered here, please contact us.
What is the Speaking Up Mentor?
The Speaking Up Mentor – SUMAI – is an AI assisted mentoring resource. It supports you to think through issues that cause you concern at work, get suggestions on what you could do and say, then decide if you want to speak up or do something else.
It supports reflection and preparation, using the evidence-based knowledge of professionals who specialise in speaking up and related subjects.
Will SUMAI tell me what to do?
While SUMAI can provide you with knowledge and expertise to help you to consider your options, it will not tell you what to do. SUMAI is designed to talk about how you feel, what you believe is happening, and to provide information. However, safeguards are built in to ensure SUMAI does not simply affirm what you have said, and does not provide absolute answers or validation. The decision remains yours, based on the deeper understanding you may have from talking through your concerns with SUMAI.
Can SUMAI tell me whether something is serious enough to raise?
SUMAI will help you to think about whether you want to speak up. However, sometimes people decide it is not possible to do so, even if they want to. For example if you think that speaking up may have a detrimental effect on you. In this case, you may want to talk through options with SUMAI about how you may approach situations differently in future, or to seek help from your organisation’s or third party resources.
SUMAI does not replace Human Resources professionals or processes. For example, it will help you to consider if you want to raise a grievance, but the decision remains yours.
Does SUMAI provide therapy or counselling?
No. SUMAI does not clinically diagnose what you describe and does not provide clinical or therapeutic advice. You should seek clinical and therapeutic advice and treatment from appropriately qualified professionals.
Does SUMAI replace HR, whistleblowing or any formal process?
SUMAI complements organisations’ processes and does not compete with or replace them. SUMAI does not provide legal, safeguarding, or other types of regulatory or compliance advice or documentation. Safeguards are included within the SUMAI design so it cannot draft correspondence or statements to support a grievance or legal case.
Can anyone see what I write?
SUMAI will not reveal what you say in a session. No part of the conversation is recorded or stored on the SUMAI systems or elsewhere.
You have the option to keep a record, but nobody can read it unless you show them the copy you have downloaded. You can password protect your copy.
If your organisation provides your passkey for you to use SUMAI this does not give anyone else access to your conversation. Safeguards are built into SUMAI to ensure that only you know what you and SUMAI have discussed.
Will my employer know I used SUMAI?
Your passkey confirms that you may enter to have a conversation with SUMAI, but the passkey does not hold your details. It is not linked to the contents of your conversation.
The system records once that a code has been redeemed, but it does not record when, how often, or what was said. No report is provided to organisations about who has used their passkey, how often or what the conversations were about.
What happens when I finish the conversation and close the tab?
The conversation is gone. It was held in the page you had open and never written down anywhere else.
There is nothing to delete, because there was never a record to begin with. The full detail is on the privacy page.
Can I keep a record for myself?
Yes. You can download a transcript at the end of a session. That file is the only record of the conversation that will exist anywhere. It belongs entirely to you. SUMAI does not keep a copy. We suggest you password-protect your transcript to safeguard your confidentiality.
If you want to come back to continue the conversation – or have a new conversation with SUMAI - you upload the transcript at the start of a future session and ask SUMAI to continue where you left off, or to use the information as background for a new conversation.
How it works
Where the answers come from, and what keeps them there.
Where do its answers come from?
From TGGR's own curated library, and nowhere else. Every response is drawn from documents TGGR has uploaded and approved.
If nothing in that library covers what you have raised, it says so rather than improvising something that sounds right. It does not fall back on general knowledge from the internet, and it cannot browse the web.
Is this a chatbot?
It uses a language model to write its replies, but what it is allowed to draw on and what it is allowed to say are constrained by the system around it rather than by instructions alone.
Requests that fall outside the mentoring role are refused before anything is generated, and every reply is checked afterwards for warmth drifting into agreement.
What is a passkey, and how do I get one?
An individual access code, issued to one person and not shared. During Stage 1 the service is in closed testing and codes are issued by TGGR.
If you would like to ask about taking part, use the contact page.
What if I am at risk right now?
This is a reflective space, not an emergency service. Nobody is monitoring what you write and no one is watching a screen at the other end.
If you are in danger or in crisis, please contact the emergency services or a crisis line in your country.
Something not answered here?
The scope of mentoring page sets out in full what this does and the eight things it will never do, and the privacy page covers what is and is not stored. For anything else, get in touch.