Terms and Conditions

These terms govern your use of Descartes ("Descartes", "the service"), a cloud-based editorial platform that helps publishers research, commission, review and publish content with AI assistance while keeping human editors in control of what goes live. Descartes is owned and operated by Genesoft Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 05530522) ("we", "us", "our").

By creating an account, subscribing, purchasing article credits or using the service, you agree to these terms on behalf of yourself and any organisation you represent. If you do not agree, please do not use the service. If you use Descartes for an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organisation. Contact: hello@genesoft.co.uk.

Descartes is an editorial workflow tool for publishers and newsrooms. It uses automated and AI-based processes to discover stories, research them, prepare drafts and manage editorial steps such as scoring, safety checks, copyright checks and human approval.

Descartes is not an autonomous publisher. Nothing is published to a live publication without a deliberate human approval step. Descartes is also not a provider of advice: content it helps produce is material for your publication, not medical, legal, financial or other professional advice.

• You must provide accurate information when creating an account and keep it up to date.
• You are responsible for keeping your sign-in credentials confidential and for all activity under your account.
• Accounts belong to an organisation. Organisation owners and administrators manage members and their permissions; ordinary membership of an organisation does not by itself grant editorial access to a publication.
• You are responsible for the actions of the people you invite to your organisation or publication.

Descartes operates on a subscription plus credits basis. Prices shown are in pounds sterling and are the amounts you pay — VAT is not currently charged. If VAT registration later makes VAT applicable, we will tell you before charging it in addition to the advertised prices.

• Subscription — the Descartes Basic plan costs £49.00 per month (launch price; normal price £98.00 per month), billed monthly in advance through our payment provider. The subscription covers the platform itself: publication management, the commissioning and editorial workflow, operations monitoring, team management, and billing.
• Article credits — publishing a delivered live article uses one article credit. Credits are purchased in packs at £1.99 per credit (19 for £37.81, 25 for £49.75, 50 for £99.50, 100 for £199.00). A credit is consumed only when an article is successfully delivered and published: failed, rejected, cancelled or undelivered work does not consume credits.
• Test Mode — testing the workflow in Test Mode is free and never uses article credits.
• Subscriptions renew automatically each month until cancelled. You may cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. We do not provide refunds for partial months or unused credits except where required by law.
• We may change prices or introduce charges with at least 30 days' notice; the change applies from your next billing date. Purchased credit packs and the current billing period are honoured at the price you paid.

New self-service publishers receive 10 free article credits to publish their first live articles. The trial credits do not expire, one trial is available per organisation, and no subscription is required to use them. We may change or withdraw the trial offer for new signups at any time; this does not affect credits already granted.

You must not use Descartes to:

• publish or prepare content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, fraudulent, or that infringes anyone's intellectual property or privacy rights;
• impersonate any person or misrepresent your affiliation with any organisation;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the service, other tenants' data, or related systems;
• scrape, resell or provide service access to third parties, or use the service to build a competing product;
• interfere with the availability or integrity of the service, or bypass usage limits and security controls.

We may suspend or terminate accounts where we reasonably believe these terms have been breached, or where necessary to protect the service or other customers.

Drafts, summaries, research and other material produced in Descartes may be generated or assisted by AI. Such material can contain errors, fabrications, bias or outdated information, and may resemble existing published works.

You remain the publisher of everything you publish. Before anything goes live, a human must review and approve it, and you are responsible for ensuring published content is accurate and lawful for your publication, including in relation to defamation, copyright, advertising rules, consumer protection and any industry regulation that applies to you. Descartes' safety and copyright checks are designed to reduce risk; they are not a guarantee that content is safe, original or legally compliant, and they do not transfer editorial or legal responsibility to us.

You (or your licensors) own the content you enter into Descartes and the articles you publish with it. You grant us a limited licence to store, process and transmit that content as needed to provide and secure the service for you. We do not use your content to market the service to others or to train third-party AI models.

We own the Descartes platform, software, brand and all related intellectual property. You receive no rights in the platform other than the right to use it under these terms. If you send us feedback or suggestions, you allow us to use them freely without obligation.

Descartes integrates with services you choose to connect, such as Ghost for publishing, payment providers for billing, and email delivery providers. Your use of those services is governed by their own terms, and we are not responsible for their availability, content or actions. Connecting a service is your decision and your configuration responsibility.

We aim to keep Descartes available and reliable, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may add, change, suspend or withdraw features from time to time. Where a change would materially reduce the core functionality you have paid for, we will give reasonable notice.

You may stop using the service and cancel your subscription at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access with notice if you breach these terms, fail to pay amounts due, or where required to protect the service, other customers or the law. On termination, your right to use Descartes ends; we will make your organisation's content available for export for a reasonable period on request, after which we may delete it.

We handle personal data in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Where you use Descartes to process personal data relating to your own team members, readers or sources, you remain responsible for that processing and we act as your service provider.

The service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, except as expressly stated in these terms. We do not warrant that AI-assisted output will be accurate, complete, original or fit for your particular publication, or that the service will meet every requirement you have.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude liability for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, revenue, goodwill, audience or data, and losses arising from content you publish, arising out of or in connection with the service or these terms.

Our total liability for any other claims is limited to the total subscription and credit fees you paid to us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded under the laws of England and Wales, including your statutory rights as a consumer.

You agree to indemnify us against claims, losses and reasonable costs brought by third parties arising from content you publish using Descartes or from your breach of these terms, except to the extent caused by us.

We may update these terms from time to time. The version on this page applies from its "last updated" date. We will give notice of material changes in the service or by email before they take effect.

These terms, and any dispute arising from them or your use of the service, are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, except where applicable consumer law gives you the right to bring proceedings elsewhere.

Descartes is operated by Genesoft Ltd (company number 05530522). Questions about these terms: hello@genesoft.co.uk.