AI Behavior

How the AI uses your data

When you ask a question in the AI chat or request a synthesis, Barvol's AI retrieves relevant data from your workspace and uses it to construct a grounded answer. This includes:

• Your workspace context (company description, stage, current focus)
• Tasks, goals, decisions, and feedback you have logged
• CRM contact and deal data
• Integration data (emails, calendar events, GitHub activity, Slack messages, Notion docs)
• Journal entries (only when using the Journal feature)

The AI does not have access to data outside your workspace. It cannot browse the internet, access other companies' data, or make up information it does not have.

Configuring AI context

The AI's baseline context — what it knows about your business before you ask any question — is configured in Workspace Settings under the AI Context tab. Fields include:

• Company description — one to three sentences about what your company does and who it serves.
• Current focus — the primary objective you are optimizing for right now.
• Key customer segments — who your customers are (e.g., "seed-stage B2B SaaS founders in the US").
• North star metric — the one metric that best represents company health right now.
• Things to avoid — topics, assumptions, or framings you want the AI to avoid. For example: "Do not suggest adding more enterprise features until we close 10 more SMB customers."

When the AI doesn't know

Barvol's AI is instructed to say "I don't have data on that" rather than hallucinate an answer. If you ask about data that doesn't exist in your workspace — such as financial metrics you haven't logged — the AI will tell you it can't find that information and suggest where you might log it.

If you receive an answer that seems incorrect, you can click "This seems wrong" beneath any AI response to flag it. This feedback helps improve the AI over time.

AI and write actions

When the AI performs a write action (creating a task, logging a decision, etc.), it always shows a confirmation card before proceeding. The confirmation shows exactly what it is about to create or change. You can edit the details in the confirmation before approving, or cancel the action entirely.

Write actions are logged in the activity feed so you can see what the AI has created or changed on your behalf.

AI privacy settings

You can restrict what data the AI uses by category. Go to Workspace Settings, AI Context tab, and scroll to "Data access." Toggle off any data category you do not want the AI to reference. Options include:

• Journal entries (off by default for other workspace members; always accessible to you)
• Email content (can be restricted to subject-line-only)
• Slack message content
• CRM notes