AI usage charter

1. The AI identifies itself as such

Anyone calling a garage that uses Prospectrum is told they are speaking to an artificial intelligence and that the exchange is being recorded. It is the first sentence of the call, before any question:

"Hello, I’m the AI assistant for [garage name]. I’m recording our conversation to handle your call. How can I help?"

This sentence is not a setting: neither the garage nor we can shorten it, change it or switch it off. It always goes out before anything else, and until it has gone out in full, nothing you say is passed to the assistant. If it cannot be sent, the call stops rather than continuing without it.

The EU Artificial Intelligence Act requires this information (Article 50); we applied it before the obligation took effect.

2. A human stays reachable

You can ask to speak to someone at any point. Depending on the time of day and on what the garage has set up, the assistant either puts you through or records a call-back request. It never pretends otherwise.

It is also the answer when the assistant cannot understand you — an accent, a crackling line, a tired voice: ask for the garage, we will not leave you going in circles.

The garage decides what its assistant may do, and can switch it off.

3. The assistant stays within its role

It books appointments and passes on requests. It does not diagnose, does not assess the condition of a vehicle, does not say whether you can drive, and gives no safety instructions. Those questions belong to the garage — it is the professional.

This is not merely an instruction given to the model: when the question is recognised, the assistant cuts off the answer in progress and follows it with a pre-written text, pointing back to the garage. No safeguard of this kind is infallible — see point 7.

The same rules apply to every caller.

4. In an emergency, a course of action fixed in advance

Faced with an unmistakable danger signal — a smell of fuel, brakes that no longer respond, someone injured — the assistant improvises nothing. It speaks a sentence fixed in advance: call 112. Then, depending on what the garage has set up, it either puts you through or records a call-back — and it tells you which, rather than leaving you waiting for a connection that will not come.

It does not assess severity, does not qualify the risk, and gives no instruction beyond that sentence. And if a transfer that was announced fails, you are told and a call-back is offered, rather than being left to believe you are through to the garage.

5. Pricing and quotes belong to the garage

The assistant does not improvise prices: it only repeats the rates the garage has entered, and always as an estimate to be confirmed. Where no rate has been entered, it refers you to the garage rather than putting a figure forward.

No amount mentioned during the call binds the garage until the garage has approved it. Likewise, the appointment is only firm once the garage has confirmed it — usually by a confirmation text. If you have received nothing, call the garage.

6. Your data

The audio recording is kept for at most 30 days, the transcript and summary for 90 days, the customer and appointment record for 2 years; after that, personal data is deleted or anonymised. These are ceilings, which a garage cannot extend.

Data is hosted and encrypted in France. Real-time voice processing does, however, involve providers established outside the European Union, covered by the safeguards in Chapter V of the GDPR.

We do not use recordings or transcripts to train artificial-intelligence models, and we select providers whose terms exclude that use — within the limits of what they contractually commit to.

We do not exploit your data for any advertising purpose of our own, and no automated decision producing legal effects concerning you, or similarly significantly affecting you, is taken (Article 22 of the GDPR). The garage, for its part, may send you messages about servicing your vehicle: each carries an unsubscribe link.

7. What this charter does not promise

A voice assistant makes mistakes: it mishears a plate, a name. Our safeguards target specific situations and can miss an unexpected turn of phrase — we would rather have a net that sometimes lets something through than one that cuts a customer off for nothing. The sentences we have written in advance are spoken as they stand, give or take a marginal rewording by the synthetic voice.

We put the assistant through a set of call scenarios written in advance — including danger situations and requests for advice — and we review real calls to correct whatever has drifted.

The assistant speaks on the garage’s behalf, within the limits the garage has set. What counts as a commitment is the garage’s confirmation of the appointment, and its quote for a price. An answer that departs from this charter is a mistake: report it to the garage, or to us, at contact@prospectrum.ai.

This charter will evolve with the service. The version in force is the one published on this page.