# Soda AI
**Soda** incorporates AI-powered, assistive features that help users **understand data**, **author data contracts**, and **accelerate onboarding** without replacing human decision-making.
Soda AI features are designed to:
* **Reduce manual effort** in defining and maintaining data quality expectations
* Help users **reason about data** and contracts faster
* **Operate safely** within strict privacy, security, and governance boundaries
Current Soda AI features include:
## Soda AI principles
#### Assistive design
Soda AI features are designed to be assistive, not autonomous. They **do not make decisions** or take irreversible actions without user involvement. Outputs are always reviewable, editable, and attributable.
#### Narrow scope
All Soda AI capabilities are purpose-built for **technical data quality workflows**. They do not process personal user information or business context outside Soda.
***
## Soda's AI security & privacy measures
Soda's features are built with **privacy and security as first-class design principles**. The following safeguards apply to all AI/ML-powered features in Soda.
### Privacy and data usage
* Soda uses **third-party foundation models** (GPT-5 family).
* **API request data** sent to the model provider is **not retained for training**.
* **Soda does not use customer data**, metadata, or results from your environment to **train** or **fine-tune** external AI, LLM, or ML models.
* **Source data**, such as row-level data and/or PII, **is never sent by default** to Soda’s AI/ML engine or to any external model provider. **AI features that require the use of source data are** **opt-in**.
{% hint style="info" %}
**The data sent to each model provider depends on the feature** and is limited to what is strictly required by the individual tool being used. See more details on each specific tool page.
{% endhint %}
#### Diagnostics data remains local
If record-level diagnostics (such as `Failed Rows`) are enabled:
* They are stored **only in your own data warehouse(s)** via [Soda’s Diagnostics Warehouse](https://docs.soda.io/diagnostics-warehouse)
* They are **not** stored in Soda Cloud
* They are **not accessible** to Soda’s AI/ML processing
### Security and compliance
All AI/ML processing is performed securely and in alignment with **Soda’s SOC 2 Type 2 compliance**:
* All processes and development align with information security, application security, and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) policies
* **Data in transit is encrypted** using industry standards
* **Data at rest is encrypted** using industry standards
* **Access** to AI features is governed by **existing Soda roles and permissions**
* Third-party providers (such as OpenAI) are **evaluated for compliance before adoption**
{% hint style="success" %}
Soda continuously monitors AI features via metrics, quality indicators and internal testing to ensure reliable operation at scale.
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### AI guardrails and ethics
* Foundation models include built-in safety guardrails from the provider
* Additional **system-level guardrails** restrict responses to the intended Soda use cases
* Soda AI features do not generate harmful, discriminatory, or user-targeted content
Because Soda AI features do not evaluate users or make decisions, traditional bias and fairness risks are minimal.
***
{% if (visitor.claims.plan === 'datasetStandard')
%}
{% hint style="success" %}
You are **logged in to Soda** and seeing the **Free license** documentation. Learn more about [documentation-access-and-licensing](https://docs.soda.io/reference/documentation-access-and-licensing "mention").
{% endhint %}
{% endif %}
{% if (visitor.claims.plan === 'enterprise')
%}
{% hint style="success" %}
You are **logged in to Soda** and seeing the **Team license** documentation. Learn more about [documentation-access-and-licensing](https://docs.soda.io/reference/documentation-access-and-licensing "mention").
{% endhint %}
{% endif %}
{% if (visitor.claims.plan === 'enterpriseUserBased')
%}
{% hint style="success" %}
You are **logged in to Soda** and seeing the **Enterprise license** documentation. Learn more about [documentation-access-and-licensing](https://docs.soda.io/reference/documentation-access-and-licensing "mention").
{% endhint %}
{% endif %}
{% if !(visitor.claims.plan === 'enterprise' || visitor.claims.plan === 'enterpriseUserBased' || visitor.claims.plan === 'datasetStandard')
%}
{% hint style="info" %}
You are **not logged in to Soda** and are viewing the default public documentation. Learn more about [documentation-access-and-licensing](https://docs.soda.io/reference/documentation-access-and-licensing "mention").
{% endhint %}
{% endif %}
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