Does AI search send data off your site? Yes. To write an answer, ExactFind has to send some text to your AI provider. This article explains what's sent and what stays in WordPress.
What's sent to your AI provider
| When | What's sent |
|---|---|
| Building the index | The title and text of each item being summarised |
| A visitor asks a question | The question, your instructions and the published index |
| An article is needed | The text of the matching articles |
| A follow-up in Knowledge | The conversation so far |
| A document is needed, in Knowledge | The section list, then the text of the sections used |
| A visitor uses Talk to a person, in Knowledge | The conversation and your team names, to write a short summary and suggest a team |
Your site connects directly to your provider, using your own API key.
Which provider receives it
You choose Claude (Anthropic), ChatGPT (OpenAI) or an OpenAI-compatible service. Answers and indexing can use different platforms, so your content may go to one and visitors' questions to the other. Requests to OpenAI are sent with storage turned off.
With an OpenAI-compatible service, data goes to the service at the base URL you enter. Check that service's terms, including whether it stores requests.
What's never sent
- Drafts, private content and password-protected content.
- Anything you've excluded from the index.
- Your WordPress users, orders or customer records.
- Anything to FuzionLabs. Questions and answers don't pass through us.
- Media Library documents you haven't added to the index. PDFs are read in your own browser or on your server, not by an outside service.
Visitors can type anything into the question box, including personal details. Whatever they type goes to your provider.
What stays on your site
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Chat conversations in Knowledge | An hour after the last question. With hand-off on, this includes a readable copy of the conversation, so it can be sent to your team |
| Question log in Knowledge | Your retention period, and it's off by default |
| Rate limit counters | Short-lived, and stored as a hash, not an IP address |
| Monthly usage totals | Kept as totals, with no question text |
Model prices
Once a week, ExactFind fetches current model prices from OpenRouter's public list, for its cost estimates. No key, site address or content is sent, but OpenRouter sees your server's IP address. A developer can turn this off with the exactfind_price_updates filter.
Hand-off to your team
With ExactFind Knowledge's hand-off, a visitor can send their conversation to your team. It goes by email, through your site's normal mail, or to a webhook you set up, such as n8n, Zapier or Make. It holds their name, email address, any note, the summary and the whole conversation. ExactFind doesn't keep a copy, though the question log records which team a conversation went to.
Licence checks and updates
ExactFind Knowledge connects to exactfindai.com once a day, when you activate or check your licence, and when WordPress checks for updates. It sends only the licence key, your site address and the plugin version. No content, questions or answers are sent.
Plugin file check
The plugin file check fetches published checksums from WordPress.org for ExactFind Search, and from exactfindai.com for ExactFind Knowledge. It sends only the plugin name and version, though those servers see your site's IP address.
Cloudflare Turnstile
If you turn on Turnstile, Cloudflare receives the check and the visitor's IP address when it's verified.
Your AI provider's handling
What happens after the data reaches your provider depends on your provider's terms. Check how long they keep requests and whether they use them for training.
Tell your visitors
Your privacy policy should say that questions go to a third-party AI provider, and mention logging if you use it. See Suggested AI Privacy Policy Wording for Your Site.