Terms of Service

1. The agreement

PodiumAI is an AI-assisted speech and debate practice service provided to school and club programs. These terms apply to everyone who uses it — students, coaches, school administrators, and parents using the consent portal — together with the Privacy Policy. Where a school has a signed service or data-processing agreement with the operator, that agreement controls if it conflicts with these terms. Students use PodiumAI under their school program's authorization; for students under 13, a parent or guardian's verifiable consent is additionally required before any practice data is collected.

2. What the service is

Students practice speeches and full debate rounds against an AI opponent, receive AI-generated scores, feedback, and ballots applied against their league's configured rules, track their progress over a season, and may share individual reports with their coach. Schools can configure their own leagues — rules, timing, topics, rubrics, judging philosophy — including by importing a rulebook document. Speech audio is processed live and never stored; what the service keeps is described precisely in the Privacy Policy.

3. Accounts and credentials

There is no open registration. Schools are onboarded by the operator; coaches are invited by their school administrator; students join only with a short-lived invite code from their coach or are added by the coach directly. Under-13 accounts remain locked until a parent approves. Students sign in with a username — never an email — and student password recovery runs through the coach with a one-time code; PodiumAI never emails children. Keep credentials private: you are responsible for activity on your account, and sharing an account defeats the privacy protections built around it. Coaches and administrators must use accounts only for their own program and keep student information confidential consistent with their school's policies.

4. AI-generated content — what it is and isn't

The judging panel, the debate opponent, and suggested coach feedback are generated by AI. Grades and readiness figures are computed by fixed arithmetic from AI-scored categories and are practice guidance: they can be wrong, they are not a professional or official evaluation, and they neither predict nor guarantee results in real competition. The AI opponent is instructed to argue from common-knowledge reasoning and never to invent statistics or citations — but like any AI system it can still make mistakes, and its arguments are practice material, not facts. Reports are reviewed by no human before delivery; coaches provide the human layer, and anything that looks off should be raised with the coach.

5. Acceptable use

Use PodiumAI only for speech and debate practice within your program. Do not attempt to access other users' data, probe, overload, or disrupt the service, manipulate or trick the AI judges (the system is hardened against instruction injection and attempts are visible in scoring anomalies), scrape the platform, or reverse-engineer it. Practice content should be school-appropriate; content that raises safety concerns may be flagged for review by appropriate program adults. Schools uploading rulebooks or configuring league content confirm they are entitled to use those materials for their program and are responsible for what they configure. Accounts that abuse the service can be suspended.

6. Student work and intellectual property

Students own their speeches and transcripts.By using the service, the student (and school) grant the operator only the limited license needed to run it: to transcribe, store, score, display, and process the work for the student and for anyone the student shares it with. AI-generated feedback and ballots on a student's work belong with that work — students and their programs may use their reports freely. The PodiumAI software, design, judging system, and documentation remain the operator's property; league names referenced in built-in rulesets belong to their respective organizations, and PodiumAI is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.

7. Third-party services

The service depends on the processors listed in the Privacy Policy (speech-to-text, AI models, email, hosting). Their availability affects PodiumAI's availability, and their processing of data is limited as described there. No student data is ever provided to advertising or analytics services — none are integrated.

8. Fees

Any fees are set out in the school's service agreement with the operator. Individual students, parents, and coaches are never charged by PodiumAI directly, and there are no in-app purchases.

9. Availability and changes

PodiumAI is currently provided as part of a pilot program, "as is" and "as available." Features may evolve, usage limits exist to keep the service safe and affordable (per-day practice caps, monthly AI budgets set with the school), and maintenance or provider outages can interrupt service. Practice content is protected by daily encrypted backups; still, no service can promise zero data loss, and important speeches should also live wherever the student normally keeps their work.

10. Suspension and ending use

A school may end its participation at any time and may request deletion of its program's data. Parents may revoke consent or permanently delete a child's data at any time via their consent link; school administrators can erase any student on their own team from the roster (see the Privacy Policy for both paths). The operator may suspend accounts that violate these terms, and will involve the school rather than act unilaterally wherever practical.

11. Disclaimers and liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law: the service is provided without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose and uninterrupted availability; the operator is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from use of the service, from AI-generated content, or from decisions made in reliance on practice feedback; and the operator's total aggregate liability is limited to the amounts paid by the school for the service in the twelve months before the claim. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, and nothing reduces the privacy commitments made to parents and schools in the Privacy Policy.

12. General

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. These terms plus the Privacy Policy and any school service agreement are the entire agreement for use of the service. We may update these terms; participating schools are notified of material changes before they take effect, and the date above always reflects the current version.

13. Contact

Questions about these terms: contact your school's program administrator, who can reach the operator directly.

A dedicated contact mailbox for direct inquiries will be published here before the pilot begins.