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In brief.
You terminate a subscription to an AI service that has been analysing your documents for years. What happens to your data? Too often, nobody knows precisely. A document AI system does not only store your files: it manufactures derivatives from them — search indexes, mathematical representations, logs, cached answers. A return clause covering only “the documents” leaves the essential in place. Reversibility is negotiated on the way in, not on the way out.
The blind spot of derivatives
Once ingested, your tenders exist in several forms: the original file, its indexed fragments, its mathematical representations, the generated answers that quote passages from it, the logs recording who asked for what. Each can contain strategic information that can be reconstructed. Deleting the file without purging the index, the caches and the logs is like removing the book from the library and leaving the photocopy on the table.
The clauses to insist on before signing
Return: a complete export of your content and your content library, in a reusable format, without prohibitive fees. Deletion: a dated commitment explicitly covering derivatives, at the provider and its subcontractors, backups included, on a defined schedule. Proof: a deletion certificate, ideally auditable. Post-contract use: an express prohibition on using your data, even aggregated, to improve models serving other clients. Timing: a reasonable reversibility window. A pre-sales test that reveals a provider’s maturity: ask them to describe in writing the complete life cycle of a document in their system, from ingestion to deletion.
The Optivalue.ai approach
Guaranteed deletion at the end of the contract is a structural commitment at Optivalue.ai: it covers data and its derivatives, and the private-instance-per-client architecture makes it simple to execute and to prove, since nothing is pooled.
What is derived data?
Indexes, vector representations, logs, caches: every secondary form the system creates from your files.
How do you prove deletion?
Through a dated contractual certificate covering derivatives and subcontractors, ideally combined with a right of audit.
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