Internal software

Sam Wells, our AI business assistant

What Sam is, what Google data it can access, and the limits we put on it.

In short: Sam is an AI assistant used only inside Elevation 10 Thousand. It is not a product or service offered to the public. It works through one Google account owned by our company and acts on instructions from the company's owners. Information received from Google APIs is used only to do that work. It is never used for advertising, never sold, and we do not use it to train AI models.

What Sam is

Sam Wells is software, not a person. It runs on a private server rented by our company. It is built on the open-source Hermes Agent framework and uses Anthropic's Claude AI models to read, write and reason. The company's owners give Sam instructions in a private chat, and Sam reports back there.

What Sam does for us

Reads and organizes business email sent or forwarded to the company assistant mailbox, and summarizes what needs attention.
Prepares daily briefings and reminders for the owners, such as equipment maintenance, bills and follow-ups.
Keeps our internal business records in Google Sheets current: jobs, tasks, costs, receipts and customer records.
Creates and organizes documents and files, including backups of our business records.
Reads and updates calendar events the assistant account can access.
Sends email from the assistant account when an owner asks it to.

Google data Sam can access

Sam's Google authorization covers only a dedicated Google account owned by the company. Sam does not sign in to customers' or anyone else's Google accounts. Within that account, Sam can access:

Google service (permission)	What it lets Sam do	Why we need it
Gmail: read, organize and send `gmail.readonly`, `gmail.modify`, `gmail.send`	Read messages in the assistant mailbox, apply labels and mark messages read, and send messages.	Triage and summarize business email for the owners; send email the owners ask for.
Google Drive `drive`	Find, read, create and organize files the assistant account owns or that have been shared with it.	Keep business files organized and make backup copies of our business records.
Google Sheets `spreadsheets`	Read and update spreadsheets the assistant account can access.	Maintain our internal business hub: jobs, tasks, costs, receipts and customer records.
Google Docs `documents`	Create and read documents.	Prepare written materials the owners request.
Google Calendar `calendar`	Read and manage events on calendars the assistant account can access.	Scheduling and reminders for the owners.
Google Contacts (read only) `contacts.readonly`	Look up contact details saved in the assistant account.	Address email and reminders to the right people.
Google Apps Script `script.projects`, `script.deployments`	Read our own internal business software, which runs on Google Apps Script, and publish new versions of it.	Maintain and update our internal business software.

Limited Use of Google data

Elevation 10 Thousand's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Our use of information received from Google Workspace APIs also adheres to the Google Workspace User Data and Developer Policy.

In practice, this means:

We use Google data only to provide the assistant features described on this page.
We do not sell Google data, use it for advertising, or use it to decide creditworthiness or lending.
We do not use Google data to create, train or improve any artificial-intelligence or machine-learning model.
We transfer Google data only as needed to provide these features (see "AI processing" below and our Privacy Policy), for security purposes, or to comply with the law.

AI processing

For Sam to do a task, the information the task needs goes to Anthropic for processing, along with Sam's instructions. That can include the text of an email or rows from a spreadsheet. Anthropic returns the result to Sam.

Sam currently connects to Claude through a Claude subscription account, so Anthropic's Consumer Terms and Privacy Policy apply, not Anthropic's commercial API terms. Under Anthropic's published consumer policy:

Conversations are used to train Anthropic's models only if the account's model-improvement setting is turned on. We keep that setting turned off, so Sam's conversations are not used for training.
With the setting off, Anthropic's stated retention for subscription-account sessions like Sam's is 30 days (Anthropic: data usage). Anthropic can keep content longer if its safety systems flag it (up to 2 years) or when the law requires (Anthropic: How long do you store my data?).

AI output can be wrong, so Sam's results are treated as working drafts and reminders. People make the decisions.

Safeguards

Owner control. Sam takes instructions about company data only from the company's owners, in a private chat. Instructions found inside emails or documents are treated as information and are never followed.
Owner approval for software releases. Publishing changes to our internal app code requires an owner's approval in a separate approval system, which holds the publishing credentials instead of Sam. We are extending owner approval to more of our internal systems.
No administrator access. Sam has no administrator (root) access to its server. The few administrative actions it can request need an owner's approval.
Encrypted connections. Sam connects to Google, Anthropic and our chat service over encrypted (HTTPS/TLS) connections.
Restricted credential storage. Sam's credentials are stored in a folder that other accounts on the server cannot open.

Revoking access and deleting data

The owner of the assistant Google account can remove Sam's access at any time at Google Account → Third-party connections. Removing access stops Sam from reading or changing anything in that account.

If you've emailed our company and want to know what information we hold about you, or want it deleted, see Your choices in our Privacy Policy or contact us.