AI features and the workspace AI switch
Axis Capture uses AI to read and summarise — never to score, decide or move anything. Every score, recommendation band and decision in the module is computed from your own data and works with AI switched off. Three things decide whether an AI feature is available: your plan, the workspace's AI switch, and fair-use limits.
TL;DR — The AI features below need the Advanced (Professional) plan or above, and the workspace's AI switch on. Search by meaning needs only the switch. When a feature is unavailable, the screen says why — your plan, the switch, or "not available right now" — and everything around it keeps working.
What uses AI
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| Solicitation summary | Summarise it on an opportunity page: who may bid, the requirements, what you must submit, key dates and risks. | Advanced plan + AI switch. Any role can request one. One summary per version of the notice, shared by every workspace — see below. A summary, not the solicitation — the full notice is always shown below it. |
| Requirement extraction | Read the requirements turns an uploaded solicitation into a tracked checklist. | Advanced plan + AI switch. Business Development User and above. Requirements can always be added by hand. |
| Match explanation | The written summary above the reasons in Why? on Matches. | Advanced plan + AI switch. The reasons and the score never need AI. |
| Bid second opinion | Ask for a suggestion on a bid worksheet. | Advanced plan + AI switch. Business Development User and above. Formed from the solicitation and your profile only — it never sees your scores. |
| SBIR/STTR topic fit | Assess fit on one SBIR/STTR topic: strong, possible or weak fit, with the reasons. | Advanced plan + AI switch. Any role can ask. Judges technical fit from your profile — never eligibility, which the topic shows from what the agency published. |
| What to do first | Up to three suggested next steps on the Dashboard, when you ask. | Advanced plan + AI switch. Reads the Dashboard's own figures and never invents one. |
| Search by meaning | Discovery finds solicitations that describe your words in other words. | Every plan. Needs the AI switch on; falls back to matching your words, and says so, when it cannot. |
What does not use AI
- Match scores and their reasons — arithmetic over your profile.
- Bid worksheet scores and the recommendation band — your scores, your weights.
- Worth a look suggestions on the Dashboard — rules over your own figures, checked daily.
- Capability gaps — shared words between requirements and your capabilities.
- Where they look strong on a competitor — patterns counted from public awards.
The four gates
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| Your plan | AI assistance is part of the Advanced and Enterprise plans. | On Standard the AI panels say *not part of this workspace's plan* and point you to your administrator. Search by meaning is not plan-gated. |
| The workspace AI switch | One switch for every AI feature in the workspace, in every module. | A workspace administrator controls it in Settings → AI Gateway. When it is off, the panels say *AI is switched off for this workspace*, and search by meaning matches your words only. |
| Capture settings | One switch per Axis Capture AI feature, beneath the workspace switch. | A Capture Administrator turns individual features off in Capture settings → AI features. A feature that is off is never called; its panel says it is *turned off in Axis Capture settings*, and everything that does not depend on it stays. |
| Fair-use limits | Limits on AI calls per person and per workspace. | When one is reached, the feature says it is *not available right now*; try again later. Search by meaning falls back to matching your words. |
Solicitation summaries are shared
A solicitation summary describes the public notice, not your company — it is written from the notice alone, with nothing about your workspace in it. So AxisSynapse writes it once per version of the notice and every workspace that opens it reads the same summary: the first workspace to ask pays for the AI request; everyone after reads it at no cost. The page says when you are reading the shared summary.
- An amended notice is summarised again. A summary always matches the version of the notice it names.
- Write it again writes a new summary for your workspace only — it never replaces what other workspaces read — and that is the one you see from then on, until the notice changes.
- With the AI switch off, or on a plan without AI, no summary is shown at all — not even a shared one. The notice's own fields stand in.
- A workspace that uses its own AI provider never reads or writes the shared summaries; its summaries are its own.
Your data and the AI
AI requests from Axis Capture go through the workspace's AI gateway, under the same controls as every other module. The bid second opinion reads the solicitation and your company profile — not your scores, CRM notes or private notes.
Common gotchas
- "The summary button is missing or says not included." Your plan is Standard. Ask your administrator about Advanced.
- "Every AI panel says AI is switched off." The workspace AI switch is off. That is the administrator's call for the whole workspace.
- "It worked this morning and now says not available." A fair-use limit was reached, or the AI service is briefly unavailable. Nothing else is affected.
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