How our AI works
AI that shows its work. And its sources.
PortalBase AI answers from your own documents and records, and shows where each answer came from. Build with AI drafts what your admins build, and a person publishes it. Here’s how each part works, and where it stops.
01. Answers that show their source
Every answer shows where it came from.
The document and page, the moment in a training video, or the record. If your documents don’t cover it, it says so.
Numbered sources you can open.
Each answer cites numbered passages. Each source shows the document and page, or the moment in a training video, with a quote. Tap it and it opens right there.
Code decides what's cited, not the AI.
Only passages the search really returned can be cited. Any other citation is stripped before the answer shows. An answer that cites nothing says your documents don't cover it.
Numbers come from your records.
Ask about your records and the answer comes with cards built from what the lookup returned. Every number has to be one the lookup returned, or the answer is replaced with plain words.
Nothing made up to call.
A phone number or web address that isn't in a cited passage, the question or your emergency words is taken out.
Who has to sign a group lockout?
Every trade working on the unit puts on their own lock. 1The foreman holds the group box and signs last. 2
Where this comes from
02. A person publishes
It drafts. You publish.
Drafts made in PortalBase stay drafts until a person publishes them. A connected AI tool acts as the person who signed in, within their own permissions.
Forms, inspections, trainings, workflows and dashboards.
Describe one in a sentence. It proposes. The person builds it into a draft, edits it, or throws it away. It never saves or publishes on its own.
Start from the paper you use now.
A photo, PDF, Word or Excel file of a form becomes a draft. The file is read and not stored.
Translations, approved line by line.
Where translation is turned on, a training's Spanish is drafted the same way. A person reviews it line by line and approves it.
Step 1
You describe it
A daily van check for a service tech: tires, lights, ladders, tools and the gas detector, with a sign-off.
Step 2
PortalBase AI drafts it
Planning the formAdded 4 sections and 10 questions.Step 3
It stays a draft
Daily van checkDraft4 sections, 10 questions
Nobody sees it until it’s published.
Step 4
A person publishes
PublishedA person checks it, edits what they want, and publishes.
03. Your own AI tools
Use the AI your people already have.
Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot or Gemini Enterprise. It signs in as you, sees only what you can see, and does only what you’re allowed to do.
- ClaudeListed in Claude's connector directory.Listed
- ChatGPTListed in ChatGPT's app directory.Listed
- Microsoft 365 CopilotMicrosoft 365 Copilot connects through your IT admin.Connects
- Gemini EnterpriseGemini Enterprise connects as a custom MCP server your admin allows.Connects
Signed in as you
Your permissions. Read only, or read and write.
Your company’s PortalBase
Only what you can open.
Off until an admin turns it on.
Connections are off by default. An admin turns them on, sees every connection and can end any of them. A person can end their own.
Read only, or read and write.
The person picks when they connect. A read-only connection can only look things up.
As that person, with their permissions.
A connected AI tool acts as the person who signed in, within their own permissions. It runs through the same code and the same rules for who sees what as the app.
Kept away from sign-in.
AI tools can never run the people-only actions, like sign-in, devices and connections.
On the record.
Every change a connected AI tool makes, and every lookup it runs, is in your company's audit log under your name and the tool's.
04. With no signal
No signal? It searches what’s on the phone.
Answers need signal. With none, the phone searches the documents saved on it, by their words, in the same conversation, and opens the right page.
Full text of documents kept on phones.
An admin marks which documents are kept on phones. Those are searched page by page, by their words.
Titles of everything else.
Every document's title, category and tags are on the phone. A document that isn't kept opens with signal.
What training videos say.
A person's assigned training videos are searched too, and open at the moment it's said.
How-to help.
Questions about using the app find the help that's on the phone.
Shared tablets always search.
A shared tablet never gives AI answers. It searches, signal or not.
The laptop does the same.
Where offline on a laptop is turned on, its field area searches the same way.
How do I lock out the mixer?
No signal, so I searched the documents on this phone. Answers need signal.
Questions about records and numbers need signal.
05. The guardrails
What’s built in, for every company.
A notice before the first question.
Nothing is sent until the person agrees. The notice says their question, and the parts of your documents and records it needs, go to an AI service we work with to write the answer, and that answers can be wrong.
Report this answer.
Under every answer. It's wrong, it's offensive or harmful, or something else, with a note if they want.
Your company's walls hold.
Every lookup runs as the person asking, so it can't read what they couldn't open. Admins can limit which documents each role's answers draw from.
Emergency words first.
A question that sounds urgent gets your company's own emergency words first. The default: If someone is hurt or in danger, call 911 now. Then tell your supervisor.
English and Spanish.
The app is in English and Spanish. PortalBase AI answers in the person's language, even when the document is in another.
Code does the math.
Type a question into reports and it becomes one checked report from the catalog. The AI never sees or makes a number.
Common questions
- Which AI does PortalBase use?
- An AI service we work with. We may change models, or use more than one. Our list of vendors goes to any customer who asks, as our privacy policy says.
- Can PortalBase AI publish on its own?
- No. Drafts made in PortalBase stay drafts until a person publishes them.
- What can a connected AI tool see?
- Only what the person who connected it can see, and it does only what they're allowed to do. They pick read only or read and write when they connect.
- What happens with no signal?
- Answers need signal. With none, the phone searches the documents saved on it, in the same conversation, and says so. Questions about records and numbers need signal.
Ask it about your own procedures.
Bring one real document. We’ll show you the answer, the source and the draft.
Book a walkthrough