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Founder Sherpa runs every AI feature — transcript parsing, evidence analysis, hypothesis quality checks, the CoPilot assistant, and more — through its own backend, over your organization’s data. You control how that inference is powered and billed with a per-organization inference mode.

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Inference modes

Hosted (default)

AI runs on Founder Sherpa’s platform API keys and is metered against your organization’s included AI credits. Nothing to configure — it works out of the box.

Bring your own key (BYO)

AI runs on your own OpenAI or Anthropic API key. You pay your provider directly for token usage, and AI credits no longer apply to your organization. Best for cost-conscious power users who already have a provider account.
In both modes, inference still runs through Founder Sherpa’s backend over your data and is rendered in the app — bring-your-own-key only changes who pays the provider for tokens. Your evidence graph, methodology, and synthesis stay in Founder Sherpa.

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Setting your inference mode

The AI & Models settings tab is available to organization owners and admins. Members don’t see it.
1

Open AI & Models settings

From the sidebar, go to Organization Settings, then open the AI & Models tab.
2

Choose a mode

Toggle between Hosted (credits) and Bring your own key.
3

Add a provider key (BYO only)

When BYO is selected, enter an API key for the provider you want to use — OpenAI and/or Anthropic. Click Save. The key is validated and stored encrypted; you can Remove it at any time.

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Supported providers

ProviderHostedBring-your-own-key
OpenAIYes (default)Yes
AnthropicYes (if enabled by the platform)Yes
Support for generic OpenAI-compatible endpoints (custom base URLs, e.g. Azure OpenAI or self-hosted gateways) is on the roadmap.

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How your keys are protected

Encrypted at rest

BYO API keys are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before they’re stored. The encryption key lives only in our server environment — never in the database.

Never shown to the browser

A saved key is never sent back to your browser or displayed again. The settings screen only shows whether a key is set and its last four characters.

Server-side only

Keys are decrypted only inside Founder Sherpa’s backend at the moment an AI request is made. They’re held under the same strict, service-only access as our most sensitive data.

Owner / admin controlled

Only organization owners and admins can set, replace, or remove a key.

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What changes in BYO mode

  • Billing — token usage is billed by your provider, not against Founder Sherpa AI credits. The credits panel and balance indicator are hidden for the organization while BYO is active.
  • Usage visibility — your month-to-date AI usage (tokens and call counts) is still shown in the app for observability; it’s just not charged to credits.
  • If a key is missing — if BYO mode is on but no key is configured for the provider an AI feature needs, that action stops with a clear message asking you to add a key in Settings → AI & Models. It will never silently fall back to platform billing.

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Switching back to hosted

Switch the mode back to Hosted (credits) at any time. AI immediately resumes running on platform keys and metering against your credits. Your saved BYO keys remain stored (encrypted) unless you remove them, so you can switch back to BYO later without re-entering them.
See Security & Data Protection for how interview content and credentials are handled, and AI Features for what each AI capability does.