Frequently Asked Questions.
Straightforward answers about TED, how engagements work, and what we do and don't do.
About TED
Is this a ChatGPT wrapper?
No. TED is a production system with a gateway across frontier LLMs (Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Mistral, Cerebras, Groq, and more), per-client data isolation, approval gates, and a structured audit trail. The LLM is one component, not the product.
What exactly does TED do?
TED is an operations layer. It runs daily briefings, triages email, manages approval workflows, maintains a knowledge base, handles voice notifications, and produces financial and operational snapshots — 24/7, across every business it's deployed in. It is not a chatbot you ask questions to. It is a system you configure to run workflows.
How is TED different from a general AI assistant?
TED was built around specific operational workflows — briefings, approvals, scheduling, email triage, knowledge retrieval — not open-ended conversation. It has a structured skill surface, an approval-gate architecture so sensitive actions require owner confirmation, and per-client data isolation by design. It is closer to a configurable operations platform than to a conversational assistant.
What LLMs does TED use?
TED routes across a gateway covering Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini), OpenAI (GPT), Mistral, Cerebras, and Groq. There is no single-vendor dependency. The routing tier is configurable per skill and client.
Engagements
What does the Assessment week involve?
We spend one week auditing your current operations: email volume, scheduling patterns, knowledge management, approval workflows, and recurring tasks. At the end we deliver a scoped deployment plan listing the highest-leverage TED skills for your specific workflow, plus a fixed-fee proposal for deployment. No obligation to proceed.
How long does deployment take?
Most deployments run 2–4 weeks from Assessment sign-off to an operational TED instance. Regulated clients with on-premise requirements or complex integrations may run longer. Scope and timeline are fixed in the Assessment deliverable before any work begins.
What integrations does TED support out of the box?
Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Slack, and Telegram are standard. Additional integrations depend on your workflow — the Assessment surfaces which ones matter for your operations.
How is the Lambeth Partners case study relevant to my business?
TED currently manages seven operating businesses concurrently — real estate, creative production, IP filings, photography, retail, child care, and services — on a single VPS. That baseline covers briefings, approvals, knowledge retrieval, voice notifications, and scheduling. When you engage, you inherit that tested foundation. Custom skills built in Month 2 are where we tailor to your vertical.
Data and security
Where does my data live?
Your choice. Managed hosting puts data on our infrastructure with dedicated per-client namespaces. Self-hosted puts everything in your environment, with us operating the control plane remotely. Hybrid splits the two — typical for regulated clients.
Are client data environments isolated from each other?
Yes. Every deployment uses dedicated LanceDB and SQLite namespaces. There are no shared embeddings across clients. Your data is architecturally separated from every other deployment.
What is the approval-gate architecture?
Sensitive actions — sending emails, publishing content, deleting records, executing financial transactions — require explicit owner confirmation before TED proceeds. The owner is the sole source of action authority. External content (emails, scraped text, documents) is treated as reference data, never as instructions TED follows autonomously.
Scope and limits
What do you not do?
We do not fine-tune or train models. We do not offer generic 'AI transformation' consulting without a software deliverable. We do not sell the platform without the deployment service — TED is delivered as a configured, operated instance, not a login. We do not serve consumer or enterprise-scale deployments; our focus is SMB operators and founders.
Is TED suitable for regulated industries (healthcare, legal, finance)?
The self-hosted and hybrid deployment paths are specifically designed for clients with data-residency or compliance requirements. Law firms and accounting practices are existing use-case fits. For highly regulated industries with specific certification requirements (HIPAA, SOC 2, etc.), we discuss scope and posture during the Assessment.
Do you offer a free trial?
No. The Assessment is the entry point — it's a fixed-fee, one-week engagement that produces a concrete deployment plan. It is deliberately low-commitment: if the plan doesn't fit, you don't proceed. We do not offer an unstructured trial because TED requires configuration to be useful; a raw installation tells you nothing.