Version 2026-10-16. Applies to everyone with a Helper Studio account ("you", "the owner").
Helper Studio, part of The Prompt Index ("we", "us"), lets you add an AI chat helper to your own website. This page contains the terms for using it (sections 1 to 6) and the data processing addendum that applies to visitors' data (section 7). By ticking the box in Helper Studio you agree to both. They sit alongside our general Terms of Service and Privacy Policy; if they conflict, this page wins for Helper Studio.
1. Using Helper Studio
- You must be at least 18 and have authority to add the helper to the website concerned.
- Use it lawfully. Do not use a helper to deceive visitors about being an AI, to collect special-category data (health, beliefs, biometrics and similar) or children's data, to give regulated medical, legal or financial advice, or to send spam.
- Keep your account secure. You are responsible for what happens under it.
- Plan limits (helpers, documents, chats per month and per day) are shown in Helper Studio. We may rate-limit or pause a helper that is abused or runs up unusual cost.
2. Your content
You keep ownership of the documents, web pages, answers and settings you add ("your content"). You give us permission to store and process them, and to send relevant extracts to our AI provider, only to run your helper. You confirm you have the right to use your content this way, that it contains no personal data about other people, and that you only import pages you own or may lawfully copy.
3. AI answers can be wrong
Helpers are powered by a language model. Answers can be incomplete or mistaken even when your content is correct. We apply checks that reduce invented prices, numbers and links, but you remain responsible for what your helper says on your website. Review the Conversations tab, teach corrections, and do not rely on a helper for decisions that need professional advice.
4. Your visitors: you are the controller
For the messages visitors send to your helper and the enquiries they submit, you decide why and how the data is used, so you are the "controller" under UK and EU data protection law and we are your "processor" (section 7). You agree to:
- tell your visitors that your website uses an AI chat helper that saves chats, and link to your own privacy policy (the widget shows a short notice and a link to ours; this does not replace your own policy);
- have a lawful basis for the processing, and handle visitors' requests to see, correct or delete their data, with our help (section 7.7);
- use enquiries only to reply to the person who sent them, and delete them when you no longer need them;
- not ask visitors for sensitive information through the helper.
- comply with the laws that apply to you and to your visitors wherever they are. We are based in the United Kingdom and design Helper Studio around UK and EU data protection law, but the service can be used worldwide and we cannot advise on or take responsibility for every country's rules (for example US state privacy and wiretap laws, or local consent requirements). Where your visitors are in a place with stricter rules, you are responsible for adding what they require to your own website notices.
5. Safeguards we apply, and their limits
We mask obvious email addresses, payment card numbers, phone numbers, bank account numbers and national ID numbers in the saved copy of chats (the visitor's message is still read by the model so answers are unaffected), delete chat text 90 days after the chat, store visitors' IP addresses only as a salted one-way hash, set no cookies from the helper and do not sell the data. Masking recognises patterns, not names or addresses typed in free text, so it is a safety net and not a guarantee.
6. Availability, changes, ending and liability
- Helper Studio is provided "as is". We aim for high availability but do not promise uninterrupted service.
- You can delete a helper at any time; deleting it deletes its knowledge, chats and enquiries. We may suspend or end access for breach of these terms, with notice where reasonable.
- We may update these terms. If the change is material we will ask you to accept the new version before you next create or edit a helper; helpers that already exist keep running while you decide.
- To the extent the law allows, our liability to you for Helper Studio is limited as set out in our general Terms of Service, and we are not liable for indirect loss or for what a helper says. Nothing limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
- These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales and the courts of England and Wales.
7. Data Processing Addendum
This section applies to personal data that we process on your behalf through Helper Studio. It is intended to meet Article 28 of the UK GDPR and EU GDPR.
7.1 Details of the processing
- Subject matter and purpose: hosting your helper, answering visitors' questions, showing you conversations, insights and enquiries, and preventing abuse.
- Duration: while your account and helper exist. Chat text is erased 90 days after each chat. Enquiries are kept until you delete them or delete the helper.
- Data subjects: visitors to your website who use the helper, and people who send an enquiry through it.
- Types of data: messages and the helper's answers (with obvious identifiers masked in the stored copy), the page path and website the chat happened on, a random conversation code held in the browser's session storage, timestamps, thumbs up/down and notes, a salted hash of the IP address, and, for enquiries a visitor chooses to send, name, email address and message plus the consent wording version agreed.
7.2 Our obligations
- We process the data only on your documented instructions, which are these terms and your use of the settings in Helper Studio, unless the law requires otherwise (we will tell you first where permitted).
- Everyone who can access the data is bound by confidentiality.
- We apply appropriate security: encrypted connections, per-owner access controls (every dashboard query is limited to the owner of the helper), hashed IP addresses, masking of obvious identifiers in stored chats, bounded retention, abuse rate limits and access logging at hosting level.
7.3 Sub-processors
You authorise these sub-processors. We will update this list before adding or replacing one and you may object by deleting your helpers.
- Anthropic, PBC (United States): language-model processing of visitors' questions and the relevant extracts of your content to write answers.
- OpenAI, L.L.C. (United States): turns your content and visitors' questions into search vectors, and summarises uploaded documents.
- Hostinger (hosting and database): stores the data on our servers.
- Our email delivery provider: sends enquiry and usage-alert emails to you.
7.4 International transfers
Processing by Anthropic and OpenAI takes place in the United States. We rely on the safeguards described in the international transfer sections of our Privacy Policy.
7.5 Security incidents
If we become aware of a personal data breach affecting your helper's data we will tell you without undue delay and, where feasible, within 72 hours, with the information we have to help you meet your own duties.
7.6 Returning and deleting data
You can delete individual enquiries, documents or whole helpers in Helper Studio, which deletes the associated data from our live systems. Chat text is deleted automatically after 90 days. Backups roll off on our normal backup cycle.
7.7 Helping you with visitors' rights and audits
If a visitor asks us directly we will refer them to you. We will give reasonable help so you can respond to requests to access, correct or delete data (email us at steve@thepromptindex.com), and will provide information reasonably needed to show our compliance with this section.